Far Away
by the perfect imperfection
Summary: TWTTIN tie-in. The war between the social classes is dying down, but not everyone is willing to let it go. And Christine Collins has read enough books to know that stories like these rarely have happy endings. OFC POV.
1. Biology Labs & Infatuation

**Author's Note: **Okay, so obviously this story was begun a while ago, and going back and reading over the first eight or so chapters, I really feel that they no longer represent the best of my writing ability, so I decided to rewrite them. These rewrites will not affect the plot in any major way, just hopefully reflect an improvement in my writing. I hope any new readers will be patient as I try to work out some new issues with continuity.

**Disclaimer: **Not mine, never was mine, never will be mine.

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**Chapter One: Biology Labs and Infatuation**

When I first saw Ponyboy Curtis, I thought he had to be the best-looking hood I had seen yet at school. I'm not exactly proud of it, but then, I'm not proud of a lot of things I did, said, or thought when I was going-on-fifteen.

It was my first day of high school when I first met him, in biology class right before lunch. My best friend, Melanie, was in that class with me, so we walked in together. When we were informed that we wouldn't be allowed to sit next to each other, it seemed like the end of the world. We had been best friends since grade school and were pretty much inseparable, and biology was the first class we had together to catch up.

I still remember the way Mel led the way into the classroom and announced our names to Mr. Wells with her customary confidence. "Melanie Walker and Christine Collins." She came first because … well, because she always came first.

Mr. Wells glanced up briefly from the clipboard he clutched in his frail hands to smile at us. "Ms. Walker, the last seat on your right, if you will."

Melanie's wide green eyes moved from the single empty chair in the back to the available seats side-by-side at the front, then back to me. She gripped my arm tightly, and I grimaced in spite of myself.

"Ms. Walker?" Mr. Wells didn't even look up this time.

"Sir—" That was when I realized that Mel was prepared to argue with him. She wasn't usually all that clingy, but she wasn't too fond of change.

My face burned at the thought of Melanie making a scene in front of our new classmates, all of whom were now staring at us.

I gently pried her fingers from my arm. "It's okay, Mel," I told her quietly enough that no one else would hear me, and nudged her in the direction of her new seat. Sometimes, if I acted confident enough in what I said, she believed me.

Melanie took her seat, pouting, and hardly glanced at the boy next to her as he tried to introduce himself.

"Ms. Collins, the seat on your left."

I'd sat down, obediently, waiting. And just when I became convinced I would be sitting alone the whole year, the bell rang and he came loping into the classroom. And golly, he was handsome, even better-looking than Billy Samuels, my very first boyfriend back in seventh grade.

I wasn't the only one staring—he had the whole class's attention, and I was fairly sure it wasn't just because of his pretty green eyes.

"Curtis?" Mr. Wells didn't sound so friendly any more.

I think that even got Melanie interested because every girl in school knew about Sodapop Curtis, the dreamy greaser who worked at the DX gas station, and the resemblance between this boy and Sodapop was too strong for the name to be a coincidence.

I wondered why I hadn't noticed him in homeroom.

The boy looked like he'd rather be anywhere but in this classroom, but he nodded. "Yessir."

He was one of them. He was a greaser, with pomade-slicked hair and a worn blue sweatshirt (something in the back of my mind noted that it was a good color on him) and scuffed sneakers. Melanie's sister, Lynn, had warned us about them, and I remembered wondering what the big deal was. All I knew was that it wasn't right, he was bad, and I shouldn't like him. He was a … hoodlum. A hoodlum in advanced biology.

"Next to Ms. Collins. Unless you'd rather delay this class further." I hated it when grown-ups did that. Firstly, I knew the only reason Mr. Wells was giving this boy a hard time was because of how he looked and dressed. And secondly, it was pretty clear where he was supposed to sit.

The boy ducked his head like he was ashamed or something, and I noticed for the first time that his ears were pink. I guess that was when I realized that he was different from the greasers who whistled at nice girls on street corners. He had a sweet face, and I was sorry for him.

I tried to offer up a smile when he looked at me—cautiously, almost like he waiting for me to give permission—but it probably came out strained.

A girl I recognized from my homeroom gave a sympathetic little smile, and Melanie shot me a scandalized look from across the room. I shrugged in a _what can I do?_ kind of way.

The greaser sat down beside me, and I couldn't help noticing that he smelled clean, like soap, even though his clothes weren't the best.

I twirled a pencil between my fingers, trying not to look at him, but he looked so miserable that I couldn't help myself. "Christine Collins," I whispered, and watched him stiffen in surprise.

"Ponyboy Curtis." His voice was soft, his expression carefully guarded.

_Ponyboy?_ I was tempted to giggle at the name, which really was awfully ridiculous, but I'd been raised better. And besides, I wanted him to stop looking at me with that almost defensive expression. "That's a nice name. It's nice to meet you, Ponyboy."

He frowned at first, like my reaction was one he wasn't used to, but then a small grin lit up his face. It was a little lopsided.

I was enamored.

xxxx

It took no more than a day for me to realize that I couldn't have asked for a better lab partner. Ponyboy actually paid attention in class and took notes (while I _passed_ notes with the girl behind me) and let me copy them when I asked. He offered to do my dissection for me the instant he saw the way I looked at our first dead animal, and he explained parts of the lessons that Mr. Wells didn't.

And he never said a thing when I saw him in the halls and pretended I wasn't watching him, even though he must have known.

It was only about a week or so before Melanie started talking about Ponyboy. And when she talked, people heard. By the end of the first week of school, she and my other friends were bugging me about asking Mr. Wells to switch me to another seat. And I'd always say, "He's a nice boy," and secretly wonder if Mel would have been so upset if Soda Curtis' brother was sitting beside _her_.

I'd known, of course, that she would never understand how I felt, and I hadn't expected any better of our new friends on the cheerleading squad. So, for the first two weeks, I was content to admire Ponyboy in class and let myself believe that maybe he liked me a little bit.

But during our second dissection, nobody could get their razor to cut. Everyone was grumbling about it among themselves. Ponyboy had at least actually managed to get his blade through the worm's skin, but he wasn't making much more progress and I could tell he was getting frustrated.

I looked down at the razor I was holding. We'd just barely progressed from cautious smiles to playful jabs, and I was about to offer him my razor with a quip when he reached into his back pocket instead.

My words caught in my throat as he flicked open a shiny, black-handled switchblade. It must have been six inches long.

I let out a strangled gasp, and the words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. "They are right. You are a hood."

Golly, did he look embarrassed when I said that, and I realized I'd spoken pretty loudly. I heard Melanie giggle from across the room even as I watched Ponyboy's face carefully close itself off. He didn't look at me for the rest of class, and somehow I felt like I'd failed him.

Except he'd failed me in a way. He, with his sweet smile and ingenuous honesty, _wasn't_ different from the rest of the hoods running around on the East Side of town. He carried a blade. A _blade_. You … killed people with blades.

Maybe, I'd realized, all of them were alike. Maybe Ponyboy wasn't just a nice boy with a few bad breaks.

Maybe he was just like those friends he ran around with—the curly-haired one who always looked angry, the one with the sideburns who looked too old to be in high school, and the quiet dark-eyed one with the scars of a fighter. And _maybe_ my friends were right about him.

Needless to say, we didn't really talk much after that day in class. Pony was moved to another seat, and for the most part he avoided looking me in the eye. And I was glad because when he did, I'd turn into a stuttering fool and Melanie could never figure out what was wrong with me.

It took me a few weeks to realize that I'd made a mistake and another week to accept it. But I was okay with it. Really.

And okay, so maybe I still watched him sometimes in biology and maybe seeing him smile did put my heart in my mouth. So what? It wasn't as though it meant anything. Not until junior year.

xxxx

"Who does he think he's kidding?" Melanie tossed her long blond hair, which she wore straight now because of the latest fad. "If he wants to get anywhere in his presidency, he'd better start rethinking a few of his policies."

Being up on current events was very _in_ this year, and Mel had taken to it enthusiastically, poring over the latest issues of _Time_ and _Life_ so that she could discuss the happenings of the war in a very loud, carrying voice in case anyone didn't think she was politically aware. I was on the verge of suggesting that she just join in the protests in Washington and leave me be. _One, two three, four! We don't want your fucking_—

I realized Melanie was looking at me expectantly. "Absolutely," I agreed.

It was terrible to think the way I was—I loved her, I did—but Melanie drove me absolutely crazy sometimes. Like now, when I wasn't even sure whether she heard what I was saying at all.

"Do you know how low Johnson's approval rates are? Do you?" We reached her locker, and she twirled the lock right, left, and right again.

I didn't. I'd just turned sixteen, and I knew about as much about politics as most just-turned-sixteen-year-olds: nothing except a vague notion that LBJ's policies weren't really getting him anywhere with a lot of the country.

"What are you doing this weekend, Mel?"

That got her mind off of world events pretty quickly. "You know, I don't know yet. Val and Laurie were talking about going down to Rusty's, but I think they have dates. It's just like them to rub it in my face. Maybe I shouldn't have broken up with Michael."

She paused to consider this possibility. I was tempted to offer up my opinion—that Michael was a jerk, just like most of the boys she dated—but somehow I didn't think she'd appreciate it much. And Melanie continued before I could speak:

"No, Michael was a bore." She paused, looking thoughtful. "Maybe I should try to get that boy from math class to ask me. What's his name again—the one who sits in front of me? He plays basketball, doesn't he?"

His name was Peter, he did play basketball, and as far as I knew he was perfectly nice, which worried me considering Melanie was involved. He must have noticed her before—he'd have to be blind not to; Melanie was a petite blonde cheerleader and one of the prettiest girls in our class—and if she set her sights on him, she'd get him for sure. And she would dump him within weeks for sure.

"What about Andy Johnson?" I suggested instead; Melanie had been gone over Andy for months during sophomore year.

Melanie scowled. "What _about_ him?" She didn't take kindly to being ignored, and Andy was the only boy I knew of who ever had.

I chewed nervously on my lower lip as the Peter in question passed us with a grin over his shoulder. Mel smiled back in that way of hers that lit up her whole face and deepened the dimple in her cheek. Watching her, I was reminded of why she could have almost any boy she wanted.

"Well …" I remembered how I used to admire Peter's brown eyes back in junior high and wondered if I was being selfish.

Mel had already lost interest in our conversation. She slammed her locker door. "I have to go or I'll be late, Christine."

"Okay," I said vacantly to the floor. Talking to her for just a few minutes could give me a headache sometimes.

"See you in math," she added with that impish smile that assured me I hadn't done anything to irritate her; she merely had more important things on her mind, as she often seemed to when she went into those vague moods of hers.

I watched with a sigh as her golden head bobbed down the hall and disappeared into a sea of darker hair.

xxxx

Homeroom was the same mess as always, crammed full of kids sitting in the wrong seats with a teacher too bored to notice. Our teacher, in fact, was so inattentive that Mel could usually get away with sneaking into my room and sitting on my desk for announcements.

Laurie, whom I knew from the cheerleading squad, came over to sit next to me. She was nice enough—she came from a middle-class family with a mother who actually cooked and a father who was home for dinner every night—but a terrible gossip.

She got to complaining about her family before long, and I struggled to pay attention. The worst of her problems seemed to consist of a nosy little brother, an even nosier little sister, and a mother who had embarrassed her in front of her most recent date. It made me wonder if anyone felt the same way about me, if I bothered people with petty problems. I usually kept my problems to myself, though, however petty, and concentrated on coming off sweet even when I didn't feel like it. It was something my mother taught me, and it had gotten me plenty of friends.

So I clucked with sympathy while Laurie lamented her lack of privacy and laughed politely when appropriate.

"You should come over tonight," she said as I glanced at the clock mounted on the wall. "My mother just loves you, you know."

"Hmmm." I smiled, spotted familiar green eyes from across the room, and promptly knocked my notebook onto the floor.

Seeing Ponyboy wasn't a surprise; with his last name Curtis and mine Collins, we'd been in the same homeroom all year. But what _was_ surprising was the crooked half-smile he had just given me—the first time he'd looked at me since the first day of school.

I had been attracted to other boys before, sure, but never a boy who managed to shut off my brain and make me hopelessly clumsy just by looking at me. And even though I didn't like the feeling at all, it was hard to feel annoyed when you couldn't think straight.

As soon as Ponyboy sat down, my mind was reeling with questions. I hastily bent over to retrieve my notebook, and when I straightened up in my seat again, Laurie was looking at me strangely. I guess I looked as confused as I felt. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"Fine," I managed, keeping my gaze steadfastly on my desk in case it was tempted to wander.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw her shake her head, probably in annoyance. She and most of the other cheerleaders didn't even attempt to understand why I went into strange, quiet moods sometimes or why I was so fond of books and plays and word games and magazines besides _Seventeen_ or _Tiger Beat_ and other things the rest of them didn't even bother with. Sometimes I wondered about it too, but for the most part I just accepted it.

It was a relief when our teacher finally called the class to order. But as soon as announcements began, I turned back to Ponyboy even though I shouldn't have. He was lounging in his chair with his feet resting on the book rack underneath the chair in front of him. He spun a pencil between two fingers (the way I did sometimes) as he chatted idly with boy in a letter jacket whom I vaguely recognized as a football player.

They both laughed, and I couldn't help it; I was riveted. One stupid smile from across the room and I was fourteen years old again, watching him and fixated with his profile—the line of his jaw, the bridge of his nose, the sweep of his bangs. Glory, I might as well have been back in junior high.

Ponyboy turned in my direction, and I looked down, pretending to chip at my nail polish, before he spotted me looking.

What I wanted to do was apologize. I wanted that more than anything because if I still remembered how I'd embarrassed him that one day, he certainly remembered too. But I'd never had the chance—he'd hardly even looked at me in more than a year.

If I could just get that apology out, I told myself, then I'd be able to stop thinking about him, and maybe whatever infatuation I'd felt for him last year would go away and I'd be able to look at him without freezing in place, stammering, or knocking things over. In fact, I was certain of it. Just two words and I'd be free.

Suddenly relieved, and with this realization fresh in my mind, it was hard to get through announcements. But I sat still and refrained from biting my nails, pulling at my hair, wringing my hands, or doing anything else that might give away how nervous I was.

When the bell rang ten minutes later, our teacher, who was still plodding through the announcements, glanced up, looking confused.

"Coming, Chrissy?" Laurie linked arms with Sharon Cox, another cheerleader, and both of them looked at me expectantly.

I was watching Ponyboy, who made no move to get up. "No, go ahead. I'll catch up with y'all later."

Laurie shrugged and she and Sharon left. I heard her mutter something about "… awful strange sometimes," but I focused on gathering my belongings as slowly as I could, stuffing a magazine and my math notebook into my book bag. I should have known it would be useless to try to do homework.

Ponyboy's friends had gone ahead, so I caught up with him at the door of the classroom.

"Ponyboy?" My voice sounded breathy, and I hated myself. The sooner I got this over with, the better.

He turned, surprised. He probably hadn't even realized I was still there. I watched his brow furrow a little before his expression cleared and he smiled that same lopsided half-grin. It was beautiful enough to set my mind reeling again. Still, I searched his face and detected a hint of caution even as he said politely, "How are you, Christine?"

Things could change in a year. His voice was deeper than I remembered, and not as quiet. He was taller, stronger, his shoulders broader, his hair longer, his features not as soft. All things I should have noticed as they were happening, but that didn't seem obvious until the changes were done. He'd grown up.

"I'm fine," I managed, even though I felt anything but. My heart was thudding in my ears, my legs felt like they might buckle, and it took effort to remember how to walk properly. "Listen, I know it's been a while since we've talked"—he raised one eyebrow at this, but said nothing—"but I sort of realized I wanted to tell you something."

He paused, looking puzzled. "Yeah?"

Before I could even gather the nerve to speak, I spotted Melanie down the hall. She had seen me; she waved, then noticed Ponyboy. Her eyebrows went up, and my stomach sank. Melanie knowing how I felt about Ponyboy was the last thing I needed to happen. She would never leave me alone about it, ever.

"Um." I looked back at Ponyboy, away from Mel's frown. I couldn't let her catch up with me. "Never mind. I'm sorry. I-I have to go."

Ponyboy looked more confused than ever, and I couldn't blame him. Gosh, if only things were simpler. "I guess I'll see you in English, then," he said.

I nodded and hurried off without a goodbye, a million questions turning themselves over in my head. How much did he remember? Was he angry? Did he even care? Did he think of me as another silly, stuck-up cheerleader? Why did I even care what he thought?

That was when I knew for sure—this stupid infatuation of mine had never gone away … and maybe it never would.


	2. Lunchtime & Awkward Conversations

**Disclaimer:** _The Outsiders_ and _That Was Then, This Is Now_ are property of S.E. Hinton.

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**Chapter Two: Lunchtime and Awkward Conversations**

I lost my nerve by that afternoon, of course, and I never got around to apologizing. But after that day it was like I couldn't get away from Ponyboy. He was everywhere I looked—and not just in homeroom and in English class. I saw him outside before school, in the halls between classes, after school at Jay's, and even at the Nightly Double that Friday night.

It was unnerving, seeing those green eyes wherever I turned, and something about them seemed to have the power to turn me into a complete basket case. I wasn't usually clumsy, so it was frustrating to be constantly dropping notebooks and tripping over things. And even though Ponyboy never seemed to notice, part of me was convinced he and his friends were watching me and laughing every time I saw him and lost my train of thought.

And if, God forbid, one of my friends said something about him, well … I had to be a little surprised that no one noticed what a mess I became.

One day, I saw him walking through the cafeteria with that friend of his, Two-Bit Mathews—the oldest senior in the school. I'd never spoken to Two-Bit, but he had a rep as a smart-mouth and Sharon Cox said he was just a gas. For a greaser.

They were sort of shoving each other around, and I figured they were probably on their way out for a candy bar and a pop. A lot of their kind didn't like to eat in the cafeteria, even though the football players and their buddies had stopped making trouble for them a while ago.

Ponyboy saw me watching him and grinned a little, raising his chin in a sort of boyish greeting, and I could swear my heart stopped.

I managed a smile in return. I couldn't quite tell if it came off polite (like the sort you give boys you don't want to go out with) or genuine (like you're actually happy to see someone), but the intent was there, at least.

Then Valerie Brooks tugged on my sleeve.

"Mmm?" I said vaguely. Ponyboy was still looking at me.

"Chrissy," she hissed. "How do you know him?"

That got my attention. I turned fully to face her. "Who? How do I know who?"

Val's eyes were flashing with the excitement at the thought of a boy in a leather jacket. "Ponyboy Curtis!"

Melanie glanced up and raised her eyebrows in an expression of interest. Tricia Hogan turned away from James Carson, who'd been trying to engage her in conversation. Cherry Valance glanced at me, then quickly averted her eyes.

I knew I was turning red. If only Valerie could keep quiet … "He's in my English class," I murmured, pulling at a curl that had escaped my headband and wishing they would quit looking at me like they were.

"Isn't he the one who killed Bob Sheldon last year?" Tricia asked, her tone biting.

Cherry quietly choked on her food; I shook my head, mortified on her behalf. Everybody knew they used to date. Gosh, but Tricia could be tactless.

"That was his friend," Cherry said. She wouldn't look at any of us. "Johnny. And you know Bob was drunk—" Here, she broke off abruptly and acted as if there was something fascinating in her bowl of salad. I felt embarrassed just watching her face fall.

An awkward silence fell over our side of the table.

"He's a good kid, Trish," David Richmond piped up from a few seats over. He was on the track team with Ponyboy, had real nice blue eyes, and was sweeter than any other boy I knew. David smiled at me, and I looked down at the table.

"He's awful handsome." Valerie nudged me and giggled. Tricia looked from me to Val, thoroughly unimpressed. "You know … for a greaser," Valerie tacked on hastily. It was a wise decision. Times were changing, but some people just weren't willing to change with them.

"You could do a lot worse than him, if you're talking about the fact that he's a greaser," Cherry chimed in, her voice sharper than I ever remembered hearing it.

Tricia scoffed quietly, and Cherry turned her attention back to her salad, clearly regretting having said anything.

Laurie rolled her eyes at me, and I shrugged in reply. I knew she didn't have much patience for Tricia and vice versa, but I tried to stay out of it. I couldn't stand confrontation; it was something I'd gotten from my mother. I admired people like Melanie who weren't afraid of Tricia, but I would never speak up against her myself. It just wasn't worth the reaction I knew I'd get.

I had just turned back to my lunch when Mel nudged me, hard, in the ribs. Her expression when I looked at her was familiar, mischievous, and it only meant one thing. She had something to tell me, and it was about a boy.

I shoved my lunch aside. All of a sudden, I felt sick.

xxxx

"Christine! I've been trying to get you alone all day." Melanie popped up beside me as I gathered my things after cheerleading practice. The others had left and were probably waiting outside; a few of them were talking about going to Rusty's.

"I saw you in math," I reminded her. "And at lunch. And every minute of the past hour." Honestly, I wasn't in the mood. Tricia had been sour all through practice, and mostly everyone had gotten on the wrong side of her temper, either for goofing off or for failing to master the steps to our new cheer. I'd caught it worse than most of the others because I was the only one on the squad besides Cherry who could turn a back flip and I kept missing my cue. I'd been a little distracted, turning Ponyboy's smile and Melanie's nudge over and over in my mind. I knew it was dumb—I wasn't usually the type to get all flustered over boys—but I couldn't help it.

Mel rolled her eyes. "Well, we weren't alone then, were we?" When I shrugged, she relented. "Guess who asked me out this morning?"

My stomach twisted. Here it came. "Who?"

"Andy Johnson." She was practically bubbling over with excitement. "In French class this morning."

"Oh, yeah?" I slid my arms through the sleeves of my coat and told myself the feeling in my chest wasn't selfish relief. I was happy for her, I was. And I was even happier that I'd misread the nudge she'd given me at lunch. "What happened?" It was obvious she was dying to tell me, but she liked to be prompted. She had always been that way about reporting gossip.

Melanie stepped into my line of sight, clearly eager for my full attention. I turned to face her, and, satisfied, she began. "Well, when he got to class, he came over and sat on my desk. And, you know, he usually sits at the back with his friends."

"Mmm."

"So he started talking to me—you know, small talk. And then finally he asked what I was doing this weekend. And I said, 'I don't know yet.' So he sort of leaned forward and went, 'Listen, you want to come down to Jay's on Friday night?'"

I had to grin. She sure had a way of telling stories. "So what did you say?"

She hit me lightly on the arm. "I was getting to that!" I waited, and she continued. "So I said, 'Sure, sounds like fun.' And he sort of grinned and said, 'Groovy.' Then the bell rang, so he went to his seat. And after class, he asked for my number."

"How romantic," I teased. "You two are a regular Pyramus and Thisbe, aren't you?"

Mel scrunched up her face in confusion. "Who?"

"Never mind." She didn't like reading much.

She shook her head. "I swear, Chris, sometimes it's like you speak a different language."

I had to turn away so she wouldn't see me roll my eyes.

Someone caught onto my left arm from behind then, startling me, and I turned on the spot. It was Laurie, and she had Jennifer Standler with her.

"Are you coming to Rusty's with us, Chrissy? Mel?" Laurie asked.

I looked over at Melanie. "Are we?" Melanie, whose parents had given her a shiny red Mustang for her sixteenth birthday, was my ride home, so I usually didn't have a lot of say in my after-school plans. I really didn't mind much—I liked the other cheerleaders—but most of them were terrible gossips and listening to them could get old real fast. They had to know I wasn't interested most of the time, and it must have bugged them, but no one said anything.

"Do you want to?" Mel nudged me, and I realized she really wanted my opinion. While she sometimes didn't understand me any better than the others did, she at least made an effort to … most of the time.

"Sure." I didn't really have a choice; Laurie and Jen were both waiting for my answer, and I couldn't very well say I didn't want to.

"Great! I feel like you're never around any more." Laurie squeezed my arm. "Val and Maureen are riding with Cherry," she told Melanie.

Mel looked at Laurie sharply. "And what about Nancy? Did y'all invite her?"

Laurie widened her eyes in exasperation, and Jennifer spoke up for the first time. "Oh, Mel, don't tell me you're getting attached to her. You know we only keep her around 'cause she's one of Cherry's charity cases. Just like Barbie last year with Susan."

I frowned. I liked Nancy McLaughlin, our sophomore alternate, just fine. She was a real nice girl. A little too eager, I supposed, but who wouldn't feel compelled to act like that around Tricia? I still felt like that sometimes.

"Or you a few months ago?" said Melanie, a little more snidely than was probably necessary.

Jennifer stiffened, but fell silent.

I looked away. Melanie's heart was in the right place, but sometimes she went about doing the right thing in the wrong way. But then, I wouldn't have said anything at all, so I guess I really didn't have much room to talk about Melanie's flaws.

"So"—Mel put an arm around my shoulders—"I heard Robby's throwing a party this Saturday. On the river bottom."

Laurie wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, but it's not worth it to go. His parties are always so …"

I stopped listening. Sometimes I wondered how we looked to everyone else, giggling and chattering on about parties and boys and clothes and nothing else. I knew when I was around them, I could come off as awful silly, even though I was anything but. Parties were nice and everything, but they weren't exactly how I preferred to get my kicks if I had the choice. It seemed like some football player was throwing a beer blast every weekend—and sometimes during the week—and it just got old, like anything else.

It was strange, really, but I'd never talked to anyone about it … well, except for Melanie. I knew she felt the same way I did sometimes, and when she didn't, she at least tried to understand what I was saying. She might have been a slave for fashion trends, but she was anything but empty-headed.

Jennifer squealed suddenly, and before I could ask what was wrong, I found myself looking at the back of a familiar head of copper-colored hair. I almost groaned. He was everywhere—it was like he was following me. Or I was following him.

"Hi, Pony," Melanie blurted, and Jen and I elbowed her from either side.

Ponyboy turned around to look at us, looking a little perplexed, and I realized he'd been reading. There was a sensation in my stomach like I'd missed a step on the stairs and was trying to stand on empty air. Ponyboy was the only boy I think I'd ever seen crack a book besides a textbook.

"Mel." (_Mel?_ Only friends called her Mel.) He grinned a little, then looked at me. I froze.

The other girls kept going, throwing Ponyboy smiles over their shoulders (though I heard Laurie or Jen reproach Mel with a "_Mel-a-nie!_"), but I stood there, rooted to the spot, and stared at him like a fool.

"Hi, Christine," he said. He was looking at my cheerleading uniform, but not the way most boys I knew looked at it—at me. In fact, for the briefest of seconds, I caught a hint of what might have been fear in his eyes. But in the next instant his expression was carefully guarded, like he knew I was trying to read him. He dropped the cigarette he was smoking on the ground and stamped it out.

Distantly, I heard Laurie yell, "Shotgun!"

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, my book bag heavy on my shoulder. "Hi." I cursed my inability to come up with anything intelligent to say. It was like close contact with him wiped my brain clean of coherent thoughts.

Ponyboy avoided looking at me, his expression wary. "Cheerleading practice?" he asked, more to my shoes than to me. He seemed a little moody all of a sudden, but I couldn't help noting that he looked just as good brooding as grinning.

"Yeah." I fidgeted under his gaze. He wasn't making a great case for himself as far as being a hood went; he slouched when he walked and smoked cigarettes and could make me squirm just by looking at me. Though that last one might have been my fault. I tugged on my skirt, suddenly feeling foolish. I shouldn't have been ashamed for wearing a cheerleading uniform, but I was, and I hated it. He wasn't judging me, but he certainly wasn't impressed. That shouldn't have mattered to me as much as it did, I realized.

"Sounds like fun." He met my gaze for the first time, something like amusement in his eyes.

I raised one eyebrow in reply. "Right. A real gas."

He grinned at me, that beautiful, lopsided grin, and for a second a sort of warm understanding passed between us. I knew probably wouldn't get why I was a cheerleader if I didn't like it, but it was okay because he was smiling at me. That made it okay.

"Chris-_tine_!"

We both jumped, and it occurred to me then that he _was_ scared of us … even of me. Scared of us like we were scared of him. We weren't like the girls from his side of his town—that I knew for certain. Maybe that was it, the unfamiliarity, but maybe it was more than that.

When I looked over my shoulder in the direction of the voice, I saw Mel parked a few spaces away from Cherry's little Sting Ray, in a conspicuous spot near the sidewalk. I could see her expression clear from where I stood, eyes practically taking up half her face. Beside her, Laurie leaned back to whisper to Jennifer, and I thought I could maybe see why we intimidated him.

"Just a minute," I called back.

When I looked at Ponyboy again, he had changed. He patted his pockets for his cigarettes and suddenly wouldn't look me in the eye.

"I should probably go." I gestured to Mel's Mustang. "She's my ride. Um … I'll see you around, I guess." It was the best I could do. He was scared of us because of who we were and who he was, but I didn't want him to be scared of me.

Surprise flashed across his features, but he said, "Yeah, all right."

With a half-wave, I hurried over to Melanie's car before she started with the horn. When I looked over my shoulder, he was still looking at us, his expression unreadable. I jumped into the back seat beside Jen and looked down at my hands.

"What on earth was that?" Jennifer asked me. I couldn't tell if she was disapproving or impressed. Probably both, I reasoned. Boys in leather jackets were off-limits to us because Tricia said so, and that made them more desirable. And gosh, who knew what our parents might do? There was danger in any boy from the East Side, and that made Ponyboy more attractive, even to someone like Jen.

"Nothing," I said vaguely. "I had a question about homework."

Her eyes narrowed. She knew I was lying; I was terrible at it. "Which class? We take practically all the same ones."

I gave her a look and said firmly, "Drop it, all right?"

To my surprise, she did, and I spent the rest of the ride to Rusty's thinking of handsome greasers with green eyes and lopsided smiles.

xxxx

"Byeee, Chrissy!" Laurie and Jen sang in unison as I hopped out of Melanie's convertible.

"Thanks for the ride, Mel." I slung the strap on my book bag over my shoulder and waved as the Mustang screeched out of the driveway. I could hear the other girls' whoops even as the car retreated down the street.

The walk up the driveway, after a long afternoon of pretending to be interested while my friends discussed whether or not they'd like to go to the fall dance that weekend (the verdict was that any dance not worth dressing up for wasn't worth going to), was exhausting. I pushed open the front door, flung my school bag aside, and kicked off my shoes. "I'm home."

"In here, Chrissy," Mom called back.

When I stepped into the kitchen, my mother turned from the stove to face me, hands on her hips. Automatically, I glanced at my watch to make sure I wasn't running late. But it was a quarter to six, and dinner was at six fifteen. I wasn't late.

"Hi, Mama," I ventured.

She turned back to whatever was cooking on the stove. I guessed it was Connie's night off. "Where have you been?"

I double-checked the time. "At Rusty's with Melanie and some other kids." I sat down at the kitchen table across from my sister, Kelly, who was bent over a clumsy crayon drawing with her tongue between her teeth. "Why, what's the matter?"

My mother was real good at huge sighs that implied _I'm carrying the weight of the world_ without her having to say a word. She heaved one now. "I would like to know what's going on in your life. Is that so awful?"

Questions like those, I'd long since learned, had no right answer. "Where's Dad?" I asked instead.

Mom didn't turn around, but her shoulders stiffened. "He won't be home for dinner."

So that was what this was about. I looked over at Kelly, who was still scratching away with a light blue Crayola, her small mouth set in a pout. She couldn't stand to hear Mama upset, and these days it seemed to be happening more and more. Dad used to be home for dinner every night. He used to be the voice of reason when my mother's protective instincts clouded her judgment. He was mild, like me, even when Mom wasn't. But these days, it was like I didn't even know him any more. None of us did. Even when he was home, he was in his study.

I wouldn't say anything, though. None of us would. Bad feelings weren't there if you didn't talk about them—that's how Mom saw it.

"Oh," I said. There wasn't anything else to say, so I stood up and went to where she was standing. She didn't move until I hugged her. I felt her relax the tiniest bit and kissed her on one sweet-smelling cheek.

"Thank you, Christine." She smiled wearily. As tired as she looked, she was still beautiful, and I felt a rush of affectionate pride looking at her with her nice skirt and her pearls and the determined set to her jaw. If there was one thing my mother was, it was strong.

More than once, I'd wished I'd inherited that from her. But I was more scared than anyone.


	3. Sleepovers & Joy Rides

**A/N: **I hope you enjoy and please let me know what you liked (or hated - just please be constructive!). Thanks.

**Disclaimer: **_The Outsiders_ and _That Was Then, This Is Now_ both belong to S.E. Hinton. I can imagine your astonishment.

* * *

**Chapter Three: Sleepovers and Joy Rides**

"Ouch! Quit pulling!" Melanie yelped, pushing my hands away for the umpteenth time.

I was getting exasperated by now. "Melanie, do you want me to do this or not?"

"Yes! Why did you stop? You messed it up!"

This was getting ridiculous. I faced Melanie head-on, wielding the offending hairbrush. "Melanie Walker, if you want your hair to get done you'd better shut your trap and sit still!"

To my immense surprise, Melanie did as she was told and sat back in her desk chair, eyeing the hairbrush warily as I approached her the same way I might an injured animal.

The night of Melanie's date with Andy Johnson had come, and Melanie had begged me to come over to help her get ready. She had picked out her outfit the day he asked her out, of course, but apparently she had to model it for me and hear my glowing praise before she could feel confident enough to venture outside in her daring choice of attire: a gray pleated skirt with a powder blue sweater. Of course, almost as soon as we got to her house she coerced me into doing her hair for her and had spent the last twenty minutes moaning about her sensitive scalp.

She let me take hold of her hair and I continued what I was doing, carefully weaving a French braid into her golden hair. This time, I tried to be as gentle as I possibly could, hoping to avoid any more outbursts.

"Ow, Christine!"

Okay, that one was on purpose.

I finished as quickly as I could and let her up to get dressed. She disappeared into her walk-in closet while I sprawled across her pink bedspread.

"So what are you doing tonight, Chris?" Melanie's voice floated out to where I lay.

"I don't know." I grabbed the latest _Seventeen_ off of her nightstand and began to flip through it idly. Truthfully, I was exhausted, and all I wanted to do was wrap myself in my comforter and go to sleep, but I didn't want to tell this to Melanie. She'd just call me boring.

"You know …" Melanie's voice sounded just a bit too innocent. "Andy told me that Dave Richmond is just gone over you."

I snorted. "When? During French class?"

"Oh, come on, Christine." Melanie sighed in exasperation, her voice carrying clearly through the closet door. "Don't be such a bore. Come with us tonight! Andy said Dave would be there."

"And what if I don't like Dave?" I challenged, and immediately regretted it.

Just as I had expected, Melanie's face poked itself out from the closet. It lit up eagerly. "Really? You like someone? Who is it? Do I know him? Tell me!"

I almost blurted out Ponyboy's name right then and there, but I held my tongue. "No one," I said instead to the Beatles poster hanging across from Melanie's bed. What was the point? Mel had her eye on him now, no matter what she said about Andy, and how was I supposed to compete with that? "I just don't think David likes me, that's all. He's probably just after me because Andy got you."

Melanie emerged from the closet with her clothes draped over her arm. She paused and considered herself thoughtfully in her vanity mirror. "Well, maybe," she shrugged, "but does it really matter? The point is that there is a very cute football player waiting for you at Rusty's!"

"It's basketball season." My eyes narrowed. "Wait. He's waiting for me?"

"Oops." Melanie bit her lip, caught.

"You told him I would be there?" I yelped.

"Well, actually I told him that he and Andy could pick us both up at my house." She was using the wormy voice she always got when she was trying to talk her way out of something.

I folded my arms and glared at her.

"Come on, Christine! Have some fun!" Melanie coaxed me. "And plus, I need you there. What if Andy and I run out of things to talk about? What if we just sit there in silence with neither one of us knowing what to say? Do you know how embarrassing that would be? And what if the movie's boring and there's nothing to do? Oh, Christine, you just have to come!" The words all came out in a rush, and she was breathless by the time she finished.

"You've already seen the movie," I pointed out.

Melanie frowned, not used to having to work to convince me to do what she wanted. "Please?" she pleaded, her large blue eyes growing even larger.

I relented. "Well, what do you expect me to wear?"

She clapped her hands in delight. "You're the best, Christine!" With that, she was back in her closet again, fussing over which of her tops would best complement my eyes.

xxxx

"That's it, I am never letting Andy Johnson take me out again!" Melanie declared vehemently as we began the long trek across her front lawn and up the porch steps.

I laughed. "Mel, you let him kiss you!"

She frowned at my amusement. "So what? I've kissed plenty of guys before; that doesn't mean I liked them all. And besides, Andy smells like that awful cologne and tastes even worse. That was the worst kiss of my life!"

I had learned long ago that it was impossible, not to mention exasperatingly pointless, to argue with Melanie's own personal brand of logic. She should really write a book.

So instead of saying anything, I was content to listen to Melanie's angry ranting.

"… I mean, really! How could such a jerk be so popular? Do you know what he talked about the entire time? Do you?"

I did indeed. I was, after all, present throughout the entire date. In fact, I was the one who offered to get some popcorn and sodas and dragged Melanie along with me so that neither of us would have to listen to Andy talk for a second longer. Unfortunately, you can only spend so long in the concession line before it begins to look suspicious.

"Football!" Of course, Melanie hadn't even bothered to wait for my answer. "I mean, I've been to all of the games! I'm a cheerleader. But why does that mean I should care about how many interceptions he scored?"

"Why, indeed?" I muttered under my breath.

Melanie dug around in her purse for her house key and unlocked the door. Her parents had left the porch lights on for when we came home, but I knew they were in bed. They never waited up for Mel.

"Anyway" – Melanie gave me a sly smile – "this just confirmed what I'd been thinking all along. Not only is Andrew Johnson a complete tool, but he's also terribly self-centered and ridiculously boring." She seemed satisfied with this conclusion, as if she hadn't been breathless with excitement about their date just two days ago … actually, just three hours ago.

"So I suppose you didn't give him your number?" Melanie liked to try boys out for one date before she decided whether she would let them call her.

She looked at me strangely. "Of course not. Why would I?" Our heels clicked on the shiny marble of the Walkers' foyer floor as we started toward the grand mahogany staircase.

"Well, didn't he ask?" I was tiptoeing my way up the stairs, trying my hardest to make as little noise as possible, but Melanie continued talking in her regular (and rather loud) voice.

"Of course he did." She shrugged like it was no big deal. "I told him no."

I was amazed. "And he still wanted to kiss you?"

Melanie stopped and turned around to face me. Her crystalline eyes were sparkling, and I was reminded once again why almost every guy in school wanted a piece of her.

"Well, yeah," she said in a who-wouldn't tone of voice.

Of course.

But when she giggled, I joined in, and we both traipsed up the rest of the stairs with no regard for the noise we were making. It wasn't like her parents would care, anyway.

xxxx

"Chris! Christine, wake up!" Someone was shaking me, none too gently.

"Hmmm?" I muttered drowsily. "S'goinon?"

"Christine, it's almost eleven. What are you doing still asleep?"

I pried my eyes open. I was lying in Melanie's fluffy bed, swaddled like a baby in her comforter. Melanie was kneeling over me, her nose inches from mine. She was fully dressed and perfectly groomed, and she looked impatient.

"Why didn't you wake me up?" I disentangled myself from her blankets with difficulty and stumbled out of bed. I knew I probably looked a mess.

"I just did," Melanie said like it was obvious. She sat down in front of her vanity and reached for her silver hairbrush.

I yawned, stretching my arms above my head. "Can I borrow some clothes?"

She waved her hand airily. "Sure, take whatever you want."

"Thanks." I stepped into her closet. It was huge and positively teeming with clothes, many of them still bearing price tags. I grabbed the first skirt and sweater I saw, took off my nightgown, and put them on.

"Are you ready yet?" Melanie yelled as I pulled her sweater over my head. "We're leaving soon."

I froze. "Wait. What?"

Melanie came in and dragged me out of the closet. "Leave, silly. We're going out."

I must have looked blank, because she giggled and said, "What, did you think I got all dressed up to sit around the house? We're going to the Ribbon."

Apparently, I was only capable of monosyllabic replies. "Why?"

"We're going to see Ponyboy," Melanie said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Curtis?" I was stunned.

She looked at me in exasperation. "Christine, how many Ponyboys do we know?"

I sank down to sit on the twisted blankets on her bed. I was bewildered, but there was a funny feeling in my stomach, like it knew more than I did. It felt like someone had taken hold of it and was twisting it, wringing out everything inside. "But … why?" She couldn't possibly have moved on from Andy already. She had liked him for years. Then I remembered … this was Melanie. She lost interest in everything and moved on the the next great thing quicker than anything.

Melanie sighed and rolled her eyes. "Honestly, Christine, why do you think?"

I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. I had seen that look she was wearing before, I had seen it many times. And when she got that look on her face, she was going to get whatever boy it was that she wanted. It had never bothered me before, but now I wanted to be sick. Not Ponyboy.

Apparently interpreting my silence for understanding, she said, "Good. Now, let's go!"

"Can I eat?" I protested as she began dragging me out the door.

"Eat later!" she ordered, frog-marching me from the bedroom before I could even grab her hairbrush.

xxxx

"You know, I'm pretty sure the common word for taking someone and holding them against their will is _kidnapping_," I noted huffily, trying to fix my hair against the thirty-five-mile-per-hour wind blowing directly at my face. It was really too late in the year to be driving around in a convertible with the top down, but try telling that to Melanie. She loved to be seen, and there was no place where more kids from school would see you than down at the Ribbon.

Melanie ignored my complaint and kept her eyes on the road ... or at least paid more attention to where she was going than she usually did. Her face was one of someone on a mission. It frightened me to think that Ponyboy Curtis was that mission now.

I continued talking, partially to fill the silence (usually Melanie's job) and partially hoping that I could take her mind off of Ponyboy for at least a minute. It was really for his own good, after all. The poor kid was shy, and he wasn't going to know what hit him when Mel started turning on the charm.

Oh, who was I kidding? I was honestly surprised I hadn't actually turned green yet.

"How do you even know if anyone's going to be here?" I was grasping at straws. There was _always _someone we knew from school driving up and down the Ribbon, and Saturday was the busiest day.

Apparently Melanie had noted the ridiculousness of my statement too, because she gave me an incredulous look. "Well, of _course _I talked to Sharon before you woke up. She called from a pay phone and told us to haul ass down there. I don't know how you slept through it."

Well, _I_ did. I could probably sleep through a tornado.

Melanie pulled the Mustang onto to Ribbon and the catcalls started immediately. I tensed in my seat, digging my nails into the expensive leather upholstery. It always made me nervous to drive on the Ribbon, even when Mel and I were accompanied by a boy or two, like we were last night, or a few more girl friends. The street was always crowded with cars driving up and down, filled with people looking for action, and the parking lots along the street were packed with parked cars. This meant that there were lots of guys sitting around on cars waiting to shout rude comments at girls. The cops who were supposed to be patrolling the street were no help at all; most of them wound up joining in on the boys' fun.

"Hey!" Melanie yelled brazenly to a few obnoxious guys sitting on the hood of an old Chevy. "Maybe if your lines weren't as rusty as your car, y'all would get more girls."

I gaped at her in a mixture of shock and admiration as she stepped on the gas and the car screeched off, leaving the jerks coughing in our dust. You could say a lot of things about Melanie, but she was nothing if not gutsy. I didn't know anyone as gutsy as her, except maybe Angela Shepard.

Still, I couldn't help choking, "Are you crazy?"

Melanie looked at me. "Geez, Christine, what's your bag? Used to be you were up for a little fun."

"Yeah, a little fun, not a little stupidity," I said waspishly.

"Okay, okay." Mel held up her hands in surrender, then gasped when she spotted someone she knew and abrputly jerked the steering wheel, sending the car careening into the parking lot of the bowling alley.

"Shit, Mel!" The word slipped from my mouth before I could stop it, and Melanie giggled at the look on my face. As a general rule I didn't smoke, drink, do drugs, or swear ... ever. So of course every time I slipped up (there weren't many), Melanie loved to watch my reaction.

"Oops, sorry." She was still laughing. "But look!" She pointed across the lot, and my hands automatically flew to my hair before I saw who she was looking at. It wasn't Ponyboy; it was Sharon. She was sitting in her white Corvette, as prim as you please, with a few other girls from the squad piled into the back seat. She looked up and smiled when she heard Melanie's voice.

"Hey!" she called over to us, her voice tinkling like bells. I had never heard anyone who sounded so pretty when she talked – well, except for Cherry Valance.

Melanie hopped out of her car without hesitation, and I followed her over to Shannon's car. We jumped into the passenger seat; like Melanie, Sharon liked to leave her top down.

"What's up?" Laurie asked from behind Sharon.

"Where is everyone?" Melanie asked in response, attempting to look casual as her eyes scanned the vicinity.

Nancy McLaughlin rolled her eyes at me and said, "He's gone, Melanie." Nancy was a sophomore and the newest member of the cheerleading squad. I knew she still felt uncomfortable tagging along with us older girls and so I usually made an effort to be nice to her, especially since the other girls seemed to be putting her through some sort of bizarre hazing thing. I think it was because she was the youngest.

"What are you talking about?" Melanie asked Nancy innocently. Nancy laughed, looking excited to be included in the fun.

"That doll Ponyboy Curtis. He was here, but he left. Isn't that who you were looking for?"

Melanie tried to look abashed but didn't quite succeed. "Maybe," she said slyly. "Do you know where he went?" She turned her beaming smile on Nancy.

Powerless before the certain future captain of the squad, Nancy was quick to report that his friend "Two-Cent" took him over to the DX.

Melanie jumped out of the car.

"Where are you going?" Nancy was clearly afraid she had said something wrong.

"Christine and I are going to the DX. My car is getting low on gas." I didn't like the look of the smile on Melanie's face.

* * *

**Sorry this took a while to write. What do you think of Melanie in this chapter? Does she bug you too? Let me know what you think!**


	4. DX Visits & English Tutors

**A/N: **Thanks to whatcoloristhesky for catching the slip about the Camaro in chapter three – I meant to change it before I posted, but I guess I forgot. It has been edited.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own _The Outsiders_ or _That Was Then, This Is Now_ by S.E. Hinton. I also do not own "I Saw Her Standing There" by the Beatles.

* * *

**Chapter Four: DX Visits and English Tutors**

Melanie turned the Mustang onto South Detroit as carefully as she could and gave me a sidelong glance, probably wondering why I was being so quiet. I had never really been the kind of person who talked a lot, but usually she was able to coax a few words out of me even when I was in "one of my moods," as she liked to call them.

I wasn't mad at her or anything – not really. Melanie was Melanie, it was something you just got used to. She was smart as anything, but sometimes not really observant. How was she supposed to know I had liked him first, anyway? It wasn't as if I'd said anything. Ponyboy was fair game.

Unfortunately, telling myself this over and over again didn't make me feel any better.

"Are you okay?" Melanie finally asked. She had given up on her stream of chatter once she realized I wasn't responding – an unusual observation for her. We had been riding in silence since then.

"No, I'm fine." I crossed my arms and leaned back in my seat.

Melanie shrugged, and we turned into the DX station. I wondered if she would have persisted had we not arrived at our destination but pushed the thought away and asked through my teeth, "Remind me again why I'm here?"

"Because I'm your ride home," Melanie reminded me sensibly. "And besides, you wouldn't let me do this alone, would you?"

I wondered what my options for an answer were.

Mel checked her reflection in the rearview mirror before approaching the gasoline pumps while I sighed. I had long since given up on making my hair do anything halfway decent.

After deciding that her hair and makeup were up to par, Melanie pulled her car up to one of the pumps and Sodapop Curtis himself came over to help us. I couldn't help wondering how many times Mel had come over just to ogle Sodapop, because when he saw us he flashed a wide grin (I was almost blinded by his beautiful teeth) and said, "You're the girl from Pony's history class, right? How can I help ya?" I was amazed that Melanie was able to appear so unaffected when she responded.

"I was getting a bit low on gas." She gave him a bright smile. "Can you fill it up?"

"Sure can," Sodapop said with a wink. "What kind of gasoline would you like?"

"What?" Melanie said vaguely, staring up at him with the same expression I was sure I had. "Oh!" She regained her self-control. "Um … regular's fine, I guess." I wondered if she had any idea what she was talking about.

Sodapop raised an eyebrow, but shrugged and reached for the gas pump.

"Um" – Melanie's voice sounded a bit too casual – "is Pony around? I had a homework question." She tossed her long blonde hair over her shoulder and gave Sodapop one of her famous smiles.

He grinned back, completely unaffected. "Yeah, he's back in the garage with Steve."

I had no idea who Steve was, but Melanie seemed to know. She grabbed my arm and went to open the car door. "Come on, Christine," she hissed.

"Why?" I whispered back. I was certainly in no mood to watch Melanie flirt with Ponyboy and probably be completely ignored by both of them. "You're the one who wants to talk to him. You go! I'll stay back here."

"But Christine –"

"Go!" I was looking at Sodapop. He was whistling cheerfully, pretending not to hear us, but his amused grin gave him away.

She huffed, but climbed out of the car and made a beeline for the garage that was out behind the pumps. She didn't look the least bit upset to be going without me, and I envied her confidence. Although I guess if I was as blonde and gorgeous as Mel, I would be pretty confident too. You just couldn't be that good-looking and not know it.

Sodapop gave me a friendly grin once she was gone. "So you're not in his history class, too?" he asked innocently, opening the hood of the car to remove the oil rod thing and wiping it off carefully.

My face must have gone white, because his smile faded. "Oh. Just kidding."

"No, but I'm in his English class." I wanted to kick myself when I realized my mistake.

He pretended not to notice, and I was grateful.

"Glory, this is one tuff car," Sodapop said, his cheerful expression returning as he began to wipe off the windshield of the Mustang. He looked back at me with a grin. "So, what's your name?" he asked me.

Gosh, that smile was distracting. "Uh … Christine." I swear I forgot my own name for a second. There must be something in that Curtis blood – I sure hoped they didn't have another brother.

"Nice to meet ya, Christine. I'm Sodapop." He extended an oil-stained hand and I shook it.

Sodapop removed the nozzle from the car and returned it to its holder. "Well, that should about do it!" he said brightly. He turned to look at me expectantly. "Will that be cash or charge?"

"Um – I –" I stammered, and Sodapop grinned. Lord, was that boy ever not happy?

"I'm just joking, Christine," he said.

Right. I knew that.

A car full of girls came screeching into the station, the one in the front seat looking like she could rival Melanie when it came to inattentive driving. She waved him over, yelling, "Sodapop!" Her friends – there were three or four piled in with her – giggled in delight when Sodapop waved.

"I'd better go," he said, brandishing the bill he had written. "Nice meeting you, Christine. I'll hold this for when Melanie comes out." He waved and bounded off.

Left alone, I fiddled with the car radio until I came to a station that was playing an old Beatles song.

_"Well, she was just seventeen / __You know what I mean / __And the way she looked / __Was way beyond compare / __So how could I dance with another / __Oh, when I saw her standing there …"_

I saw Melanie come out of the garage and I was glad I had chosen to refrain from singing (because if you want to know the truth, I can't carry a tune in a bucket). She was dragging Ponyboy along by the hand and saying, "Come on! Just come say hi."

My heart pounded. Was it possible that Melanie was more perceptive than I'd thought? What if she really could tell that I had a crush on him? Was it really that obvious?

"Hi, Christine." Ponyboy gave me a distracted smile. The collar of his plaid button-down shirt was crooked, and there were small smudges of car oil on his cheeks and chin. When I looked down, I saw that his hands were caked in oil, too, and grinned at the thought of how filthy Melanie's hand would be when she let go.

"Hey, Ponyboy." I smiled at him and watched in awe as his halfhearted smile widened into a grin, making him look for all the world like his older brother.

Melanie let go of Ponyboy and reached for one of the rags Sodapop had left. I snorted.

Once her hand was clean again, Mel addressed Ponyboy. "Christine and I were just going for a drive. Why don't you come with us?" She glanced at me, and I instantly knew that this was in no way for my benefit. I was just a prop, an excuse to get him outside. We both knew Ponyboy was too polite to refuse to see me, and this way Melanie could act like the idea had just occurred to her. I raised my eyebrows at her, torn between being offended and being impressed.

"I don't know." Ponyboy looked frightened at the prospect. "I should probably –"

"We'll drop you off right back here," Melanie said sweetly, reaching out to fix the collar on his shirt and wiping an oil smudge from his face. She tilted her head slightly. "Steve won't even notice you're gone. We'll be real fast, I promise." She gave me a pleading look.

"Come on, Ponyboy. It'll be fun," I managed. When he looked at me, I rearranged my face into what I hoped was some semblance of a reassuring smile.

He still looked a bit wary. "Well …"

Sodapop appeared behind Ponyboy. "'Course he'll come," he said cheerfully. "Won't you, Pony?"

Glory, if looks could kill, there would be a lot of very sad girls in Tulsa.

"I guess I could come," Ponyboy said, sounding like he would much rather not.

Melanie immediately brightened. "Great!" she said, reaching into the car for her purse. She pulled out her wallet and paid Sodapop for the gas, then jumped into the driver's seat.

Ponyboy and I exchanged glances before climbing into the car. This was bound to be interesting …

xxxx

"Are you shy, Ponyboy?" Laurie put a hand on Ponyboy's arm.

"No, I think it's more strong and silent," Val said with a giggle, leaning against him and Melanie jerked the car around another corner.

I turned away from the back seat of the car to watch the buildings on the side of the street fly by as we drove down the nearly deserted street at fifteen miles above the speed limit. I was glad that no one could see my face, which I was sure showed the same mixture of amusement, sympathy, and jealousy that I felt.

Melanie turned her head sideways so that she could join in on the conversation, and I sighed, focusing my attention on the road ahead of us so we didn't crash. Sometimes I wonder how Melanie got her driver's license, I really do. She may be my best friend, but I'm willing to admit that her attention span is not one of her more attractive qualities.

"Melanie! Car!" Somehow, she had managed to steer the car into the neighboring lane. I jerked the steering wheel, and we skidded around the angrily honking driver in a silver Dodge Charger.

"Sorry." Mel really did sound abashed this time.

"Keep your eyes on the road." My voice sounded a bit more irritable than I had intended.

Making a face like a scolded child, Melanie made a big show of fixing her eyes on the street ahead of us. When we reached the street corner, she slowed down to a near stop before we turned. Laurie and Val snickered from the back seat.

I wanted to tell her to just grow up, but I couldn't bring myself to, no matter how much she had been bugging me today. There was no point in making a big deal out of nothing.

Melanie looked like she wanted to ask if she was going too fast for me – maybe call me "Mother" if she was really in an immature mood – but seemed to think better of it when she caught my eye. I was sure I looked as irritated as I felt, whether I was saying anything or not.

Actually, I hadn't said much all day. I'd been pretty quiet, even for me, since we had picked up Valerie and Laurie on the Ribbon. I was pretty sure Ponyboy wasn't expecting that, but as they sat on either side of him, flirting nonstop, he had become a bit less quiet. I was starting to wonder if he was as shy as I'd thought. I had been expecting – maybe hoping – that he would clam up as soon as two unfamiliar girls climbed into the car, but Laurie and Val were two of the loudest girls I had ever met, and, unlike Melanie, they noticed when they were the ones doing all the talking.

We had been driving around for nearly half an hour, I was sure; Steve, whoever he was, would certainly realize Ponyboy was gone by the time we got back, contrary to what Melanie had promised.

"Christine? Are you listening?" Maybe part of the reason I hadn't said much was because I had tuned out their conversation. I did that sometimes; it drove my friends and my parents crazy. I really didn't mean to – I just stopped listening and pretty soon I forgot I was even talking to someone in the first place.

"Yeah, sorry," I said to Laurie, even though I wasn't listening.

She looked at me expectantly.

"You're right," I tried.

Everyone laughed at this, even Melanie, who was still sulking a little from the rebuke I'd given her.

As soon as I was sure I was no longer the center of attention, I turned to watch the scenery again. It was sure more interesting than listening to people talk sometimes …

xxxx

"Where have you been?" my mother called out to me when I let myself in through the front door and dumped my bag near the stairs. She was sitting at the kitchen table with my younger sister, Kelly. Kelly had a glass of milk and a jelly sandwich in front of her and had probably been talking Mom's ear off before I got home.

"Melanie and I went for a drive. We picked up Laurie and Val, too. Sorry, did I forget to call?" I couldn't even remember.

Mom gave me an affectionate smile. "I called Melanie's mother around noon. She said you two went out."

"Sorry." I poured myself a glass of iced tea. "It won't happen again."

"Yes, it will." She wasn't upset. She was right; I was always forgetting to call home.

I shrugged in agreement and sat down next to Kelly. She smiled at me, revealing her two missing front teeth. "Prissy, I made you a picture." She showed me a crayon sketch of a figure in a triangular dress that I knew was supposed to be me.

"Next time, Smelly, I want a purple dress," I said, and reached over to tickle her. She shrieked in protest.

"Christine, leave your sister alone," our mother sighed. I grinned and drained my glass of tea.

Kelly stuck out her tongue at me. "Yeah, Prissy," she said. "I'm almost seven. Practically grown up."

"Grown-ups aren't ticklish," I told her.

Her face fell. "I'm not either," she muttered, crossing her arms.

I reached out and pulled on one of her braids. "I'm just teasing you, Kel," I said lightly.

She scowled at me and took another bite of her sandwich.

"Did you have fun at Melanie's?" Mom asked me as I pried a crayon from Kelly's sticky grip and scrawled my name across the picture she had drawn me.

I shrugged. "Yeah, I guess," I said, thinking about the drive we had taken today. By the time it was over, Ponyboy had an arm around Valerie and had agreed to tutor Melanie in English. Was it strange to feel like I should be protecting him from my friends instead of the other way around?

"What did you do?"

I drew a rain cloud over my crayon image's head. "We went to the movies with a couple of boys from school. It was pretty boring, but at least Mel was there, too." I sighed, remembering how much she had complained about Andy. It made me glad I had gone with David. He wasn't all that interesting, but he was a nice boy, which was more than I could say for Andy.

Mom smiled slyly. "Was David there?"

"Mom!" I protested in embarrassment. Kelly grabbed my paper away from me and added a pink umbrella above the stick figure to shield her from the rain. I ignored her.

"Did Melanie say something about him when she came over on Thursday?" We'd been studying for a math test – well, we were supposed to be studying for a math test. Mel spent most of her time prank calling a few of Will Rogers' finest. Her maturity was really astounding.

"She might have mentioned something," my mother admitted.

I was going to kill Melanie. "Well, sorry to disappoint, but I'm not interested. Actually, neither of us had a great time last night. Apparently, Andy Johnson is more of a conceited prick than Mel thought."

"Andy? What happened to Ray?"

"Ray was _last _week, Mom. Get with the times." We exchanged a grin. Both of us knew how fickle Melanie could be.

Kelly lifted her glass of milk to take a sip and put her elbow right into a smear of jelly on her plate that had fallen out of her sandwich. "Melanie's pretty," she said wistfully. "Like a princess."

I snorted. Melanie was a princess, all right. She was spoiled rotten.

Mom sighed. "Kelly, not again." She reached for a napkin and soaked it in water. She handed it to me, and I began rubbing the sleeve of Kelly's brand-new pink dress, trying to remove as much of the jelly from it as I could.

"Oopsie." Kelly smiled innocently. She had milk smeared all over her upper lip all the way up to her nose, and there was jelly on her chin. Her round blue-green eyes sparkled with mischief, reminding me uncannily of Melanie. My mom always said Mel was over here so much we might as well adopt her, but now that I thought about it, that was probably a bad idea. I would probably start thinking I had two younger sisters instead of one. And Kelly was a handful all on her own.

"And what did you do all day today?" my mother asked once we had Kelly cleaned up.

"Mel and I drove down the Ribbon for a while and picked up a few friends to go for a drive." I tried my best to sound casual. My mother was pretty perceptive, and I didn't want to even hint that there had been a boy with us. I was a horrible liar, and if she found out that I had a crush she would never leave it alone.

I guess it worked, because she nodded and focused back on Kelly, who had almost managed to spill milk down the front of her dress. I stood up from the table to leave.

"Where are you going?" Mom asked.

I gave her a strange look. "To call Melanie." I'd have thought it would have been obvious.

She looked like she wanted to say something, but just shook her head, muttering something about teenage girls and our phone bill. I shrugged and headed upstairs. Melanie was going to be wondering what was taking so long.

* * *

**The "rod thing" Christine talks about at the gas station is the oil dipstick. I don't know many sixteen-year-old girls who know what that is. :)**


	5. Fights & Studying After School

**A/N: **So, while most everyone else, it seems, has decided to give Pony an English tutor, I have decided to make him one. He said in the book that he did really well in English before everything with Johnny and Dallas happened, so I like to imagine that he began doing well again after he recovered.

Again, my apologies for the wait – I'll try to find myself a beta soon.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own The Outsiders or That Was Then, This Is Now by S.E. Hinton. I am making no profit from this story.

xxxx

**Chapter Five: Fights and Studying After School**

I frowned at Melanie. "I don't know, Mel. I really don't see a reason I should be there."

Melanie clasped her hands together and gave me a pleading look. "Please, Christine?" she begged. "I can't do this without you! Oh, please, please, please?"

"Melanie …"

"Come on, Chris! Pleeease?"

I sighed. I knew she had won; she always could wear me down when she wanted to. "Oh, all right," I grumbled, wondering how I always lost these arguments.

Melanie threw her arms around my neck in delight and gave me a hug. "You're the best!"

So I'd been told.

Shaking my head and feeling like an indulgent mother, I wondered what on earth I'd gotten myself into.

xxxx

Melanie was waiting for me in the back parking lot after school, just like she'd promised when she somehow managed to talk me into coming with her to Ponyboy's for her first tutoring session.

This parking lot used to be strictly a greaser hangout – our kind used to park their cars back here, since it was the only parking lot at school, and get out as soon as they could – but after a while middle and upper class kids gradually began to mingle with the lower-class ones, and now the back parking lot had become a dangerous no-man's-land.

Mel was standing in the midst of a small gaggle of cheerleaders, but when she saw me, she immediately waved and broke free of the others. She ran over to meet me.

"I can't believe I'm doing this!" she squealed.

Neither can I, I thought. I was really going to have to learn to say no to Melanie.

"Have you seen him yet?" She tugged nervously on a strand of blonde hair that had come out of her ponytail and smoothed down her cashmere sweater.

"Who? Ponyboy?" I asked innocently.

Melanie rolled her eyes. "No. John Lennon. _Yes, P_onyboy!"

"Well, geez," I muttered, pretending I was offended. "There's no need to get sarcastic or anything."

She sighed. "Grow up, Christine."

I raised an eyebrow.

Another sigh. "I'm sorry, okay? I'm just sort of nervous. I'm really glad you're coming with me." Melanie, nervous? That was a new one. But it was sort of sweet, too. Well, sweet except for the fact that the boy she liked enough to get this nervous over was the same boy who had been making _me _nervous for the past year and a half.

"Yeah, yeah," I muttered. "That's what friends are for and all that good stuff."

I thought she was going to snap at me again, but instead she squeezed my arm. "Really, Christine, I mean it. Thanks." Her expression was sincere. I almost threw up.

Her grip on my arm tightened so suddenly I was surprised her fingernails didn't break through the skin. "Ohmygoodness, there he is!" she gasped breathlessly.

I wasn't going to look, but I couldn't help it. He was walking out the back door with Curly Shepard, of all people, and a few other guys from the Shepard Gang. Their matching black leather jackets contrasted with Ponyboy's brown one. They were all shoving each other around – typical boyish behavior, but it only served to make them more look like thugs. Ponyboy was the only one without greasy hair, and the only one without a matching jacket, but he still looked like one of them.

Really, I shouldn't have been surprised. He was, after all, a greaser, and greasers were mostly friends with other greasers. But still, I had never seen him at school away from his friends from the track team or Two-Bit Mathews, who was just too friendly to look like your typical hood, despite his appearance. The only friend of his I'd seen who actually looked like a hood was the curly-haired one that graduated last year.

Seeing him with Curly Shepard was a bit of a jolt, though it shouldn't have been. Curly was Tim's younger brother, and pretty little dark-haired Angela was his little sister. He wore his curly dark hair greased back with an unnecessary amount of pomade and his blue eyes – while not as dark or menacing as his older brother's – sparkled dangerously. He was the epitome of a downtown hood.

I glanced over at Melanie to see if she looked as surprised as I felt. She didn't. I guess I just had trouble matching quiet, book-reading Ponyboy from English class to this cool, aloof copy of him. He looked the same – same hair, same eyes – but at the same time completely different.

"Should we go over to him?" Melanie whispered to me, since the other girls had come over to join us.

I watched him take a lit cigarette from Curly and take a drag, reminding me of that day after cheerleading practice. Had it only been two weeks? It seemed like months ago.

"I don't know," I replied to her question, making a point of speaking in a normal tone of voice. It wasn't like he could hear us. "Isn't his friend supposed to be driving us? Let's wait for him."

No sooner had I finished talking than Two-Bit Mathews hollered, "Ponyboy Curtis!" from the back steps and ran all the way across the parking lot to the car Ponyboy was leaning against. He almost tackled Ponyboy, who dropped his cigarette in surprise and hastened to stamp it out, and put the younger boy in a headlock, mussing his rusty brown hair.

"Glory, Two-Bit!" I heard Ponyboy complain loudly, before his voice returned to its normal volume. No longer able to hear him, I turned away so he wouldn't catch me looking, only to glance back half a second later and see a big kid with blond hair who belonged to one of the other gangs in town – maybe Brumly – stride over to where Ponyboy, Shepard, and the others were standing. He had a few friends clustered behind him, and I could feel the tension clear over where I stood. Gang fights were going out of style, but they weren't completely gone yet, and the Brumly boys were pretty wild.

We watched the boys approach, me with growing trepidation, the others with barely repressed eagerness. They were drawing the attention of the other kids in the parking lot, and soon a small crowd formed. I shuddered. I hated fights.

"Hey, Curtis!" I think everyone there heard the blond kid yell.

Oh, God. What was going on? I couldn't imagine who would want to fight him. Don't answer, I begged silently. Don't fight this kid. I looked at Blondie again. He wasn't huge, but was at least three inches taller than Ponyboy and several inches wider.

"Yeah?" Ponyboy responded coolly. Immediately, all of the boys standing with him stiffened where they stood. Curly Shepard lit a cigarette, and Two-Bit put his elbow on Ponyboy's shoulder and leaned against him, instantly turning into the definition of a hoodlum with that goofy grin off his face. I don't think I ever saw him that serious before.

I couldn't hear what Blondie was saying to Ponyboy, but whatever it was was making him real mad. He had his jaw clenched angrily and his hands were balled into fists. Two-Bit looked like he wanted to jump on the guy.

Ponyboy was saying something now, but I couldn't make it out. I realized that I was unconsciously moving away from the fight. I wished everyone else would mind their own business.

Blondie was laughing, a cold, unamused laugh that made my insides freeze. He said something else.

I almost wish I could've heard what he said, because whatever it was snapped something inside of Ponyboy. He jumped on the kid, leveling him easily with a hard punch to the jaw.

Blondie's friends, whom I had expected to jump into the fight, backed off in a way that clearly showed that they didn't think it was their fight. Shepard and the others moved away a bit too and stood back to watch Ponyboy and Blondie.

I was frozen in shock. So was Melanie. I was sure my expression was identical to hers, too – horrified disbelief. That was sure what I felt. I'd been positive when Blondie walked over that he would be able to whip any of the lean Shepard boys. But he seemed to be having a tough time with Ponyboy, one of the smallest.

Then again, I'd never have guessed Ponyboy was a good fighter. Sure, he had a good build, but it never even crossed my mind that he would be capable of hitting someone, let alone landing the punches he was now.

"Oh, my Lord." Melanie's eyes were huge as she watched the fight. I wanted to say something back but found I couldn't speak.

Blondie swung a hard right hook that landed squarely on Ponyboy's cheek, missing his eye by inches. When he faltered, Blondie got him in the gut and almost had him on the ground before he recovered and smashed his fist into Blondie's nose so hard I could swear I heard it break from across the parking lot.

What I could definitely hear was Blondie's cursing as his nose began to bleed. Ponyboy was on top of him in an instant, landing an uppercut to his chin while fought to regain control. When Blondie stopped struggling, Ponyboy picked himself up. Blondie remained sprawled on the pavement, gasping for air and cursing at the same time.

I was pretty sure my jaw was on the ground. The other girls had recovered pretty quick – like I said, a fight in the parking lot is not a rare occurrence – but I was still stunned into silence as they gradually began again with their gossiping and giggling.

My eyes were fixed on Ponyboy as he and Two-Bit began talking quietly, something I had previously suspected would have been impossible for Two-Bit.

"Let's go now." Melanie was tugging on my arm.

"Are you sure?" As unreasonable as it was, I was afraid to approach Ponyboy after what I'd just seen.

Melanie rolled her eyes at me. "Christine, they're our ride. Come _on_!"

Your ride, I wanted to say, but instead I sighed, said goodbye to our other friends, and followed Melanie as she crossed the parking lot with a confident strut.

"Glory, what will Dairy say?" Ponyboy was saying as he gingerly touched a rapidly forming bruise on his cheek and winced.

Dairy? Who was Dairy? I looked over at Melanie. She looked as bewildered as I did.

"Don't worry, kid." Two-Bit rubbed Ponyboy's hair. "Ol' Darrel ain't been so hard on you in a long time. I'm sure he'll 'least give ya a chance to explain what happened, but next time try not to get yourself caught up in a fight with a Brumly boy, huh?"

I guessed it was Darry, then, not Dairy. That made a bit more sense. But still – did he call his father Darry? That seemed a little weird, even for someone whose parents named him Ponyboy.

Two-Bit didn't give me a chance to ponder this further, because right then he looked over Ponyboy's shoulder and saw us. His face broke out into a wide grin. "Howdy," he said cheerfully.

Ponyboy turned around and grinned, then winced and grabbed his jaw.

Melanie gave him a hug, and I felt like she'd punched me in the stomach instead. "We saw what happened," she cooed. "Are you okay?"

"You saw that?" Ponyboy was turning red, and I was glad, because I couldn't imagine Hood Ponyboy blushing. It was really him.

But … _was _it him? Seeing him acting in the exact way I'd somehow convinced myself he never had was more jarring than it should have been. He was a greaser; greasers got into fights. I had been taught never to use generalizations, but I guessed this one was true. More true than I'd thought. I remembered the switchblade he'd pulled in biology last year with a shudder.

"So, you ready to see if Betsy's willing to start up for us today?" Two-Bit asked us.

Melanie and I both looked at Ponyboy, who rolled his eyes. "His car," he explained.

"Right over there," Two-Bit said proudly, pointing to a black Plymouth so old I was surprised it was still running. "She can be picky 'bout when she starts up, but she's a good old car."

Ponyboy shook his head at us behind Two-Bit's back, mouthing the word _no_.

Melanie reached the car first but seemed afraid to touch it. She reached out tentatively for the handle of the back door but drew her hand as if afraid she might pull the door off by mistake. Looking again at the car, I thought she just might.

Two-Bit laughed. "Go ahead, she won't bite. Who wants to ride shotgun?"

When Mel and I exchanged glances and said nothing, he started laughing again. His laugh was as contagious as Sodapop's smile. "Don't worry, I wouldn't make anyone 'cept Pony here ride up here in this pile of … rust." He caught himself. "Bumps in the road are a bit hard on Betsy here, 'specially if you're ridin' in front." He grinned and opened the driver's door.

Once we were inside, Two-Bit put the key in the ignition. The engine turned over but didn't start.

"Damn. Hey, Pony," he said hopefully.

"No," Ponyboy said from the passenger seat.

"Fine." Two-Bit sighed and pretended he was upset, but I could hear that permanent grin in his voice. He tried again, and this time, the engine coughed and started.

Two-Bit was delighted. "'Atta girl, Betsy!" He turned around to grin at us. "One of you ladies must be my lucky charm," he said with a wink.

"Just drive, Two-Bit," Ponyboy said wearily.

Two-Bit gave him a mock salute – thankfully, one that involved more than one finger – and said, "Hold on tight." He put the car in reverse and we lurched out of the parking lot.

xxxx

I resisted the urge to fall to my knees and kiss the pavement when Two-Bit finally jerked the car into the Curtises' driveway. Melanie looked like she was even more tempted than I was.

Two-Bit wasn't kidding when he told us to hold on. He drove like a maniac, and somehow the car never seemed to come to a complete stop (he'd cheerfully informed us as soon as we were out of the parking lot that the brakes were "out again this week").

"Here we are," Two-Bit announced. "The Curtis residence."

Ponyboy's house was a small one-story house with peeling light blue paint and white trim. There was a small front yard with slightly overgrown grass and a front porch that was sagging a bit. It was small, but by no means the worst house in the neighborhood. It looked comfortable, like people actually lived in it, unlike half of the houses on my street and all of the houses on Melanie's street. It was certainly different than what we were accustomed to, but – I hated to admit it – better than I'd expected.

Two-Bit held the screen door open and pushed on the front door. It swung open. "After you," he said gallantly, tipping an imaginary hat.

I walked inside and found myself in a small, cluttered living room. There was an old couch, an overstuffed armchair, a small television set, and a baby grand piano, clearly used before. The carpet was stained with what looked like coffee.

As soon as he was inside, Two-Bit bounded for the kitchen. I saw him take something out of their icebox.

"Two-Bit!" Ponyboy tossed his jacket in the general direction of the couch and followed him into the kitchen. "If you eat it all, I'm going to have to make another one tonight."

A plate clattered onto the counter. "Point taken," said Two-Bit's voice, as he had vanished from my sight.

I walked into the kitchen with Melanie at my heels and found Two-Bit standing near the sink, his mouth and fingers covered in chocolate. Half a huge slice of chocolate cake remained on the plate he had dropped on the counter. His hands were held up in surrender.

Ponyboy, who was reaching for the rest of the slice, frowned at him. "Hey, I never burned anything 'cept for that one time. At least _I_ remember to take them out of the oven." He smirked at Two-Bit.

"Once! Okay, fine, maybe twice," Two-Bit conceded. "Why do you think I don't got a job, kid?" He followed Ponyboy back into the living room.

"'Cause you're a lazy bum?" Ponyboy suggested.

Two-Bit cocked an eyebrow. "That may be, Pony, but this bum can use his head once in a while."

Looking offended, Ponyboy jumped on Two-Bit and tackled him to the ground. Two-Bit was on top of him in an instant. He struggled to keep Ponyboy down while the other struggled against his grip. I watched in amusement as they wrestled with each other. "Do y'all want something to eat?" Ponyboy asked us, his voice muffled as he struggled with Two-Bit. They rolled into the coffee table, and Two-Bit cursed.

"I'm fine." Melanie sat down carefully on the couch.

I was tempted to ask for a piece of cake, but instead I said, "Me too," and sat beside Melanie, my body sinking into the soft, worn couch. I don't think our family owned something this comfortable.

Suddenly, a sound like a dying animal came from the Curtis driveway. Mel and I both jumped in surprise and Ponyboy grinned, pushing Two-Bit off of him.

"What on earth is that?" Melanie's hand was over her heart.

"Don't worry, it's just Soda's new car. He's home early, I guess." That smile should be illegal.

Sure enough, seconds later, the front door flew open with a _bang _and Sodapop Curtis pranced inside, unbuttoning his DX shirt as he went. He tossed it carelessly at the chair, his aim much worse than Ponyboy's, and kicked off his shoes. One hit the opposite wall dangerously close to the television and bounced off.

"Hey, Pony! Hey, Two-Bit." Soda leaped for Ponyboy and they both tumbled to the ground. "What in the world happened to your face?" He noticed Ponyboy's injured face and cupped his brother's chin in a motherly fashion.

"I got into a fight."

"The kid from the dance?" Soda gave Two-Bit a look.

"I was completely against it," Two-Bit said unconvincingly, grinning at Ponyboy.

Sodapop began fussing the way my mother might if Kelly had fallen down and scraped her knee. "Well, why didn't you clean it off right away? What's Darry gonna think? You didn't get caught, did ya?"

It took him a minute to notice Melanie and me on the couch.

"Well, now!" he said delightedly. "I didn't know we had visitors. Christine, right? And you, Miss History Class, must be Melanie." He flashed one of his famous grins.

Melanie giggled.

"Where's Stevie?" Two-Bit yelled after Sodapop, who had darted into the kitchen.

Soda came back with bottle of alcohol that I guessed they kept around for cleaning cuts. I hoped so, anyway. "He took a late shift today. Plus, this way I get to drive without listenin' to him complainin' that I'm driving too fast and stuff. He thinks I'm gonna mess up the engine after all that work." He shrugged.

"It was a sad day for all the drivers in Tulsa," Two-Bit said solemnly while I wondered if I was ever going to get to meet this mysterious Steve. "When's he get off? I need him to look at my car. The brakes went out."

Soda laughed. "He ain't off till six, I think." He grabbed Ponyboy by the chin and, before Pony could protest, started dabbing alcohol on one particularly nasty cut. Ponyboy hissed in pain, but let Sodapop finish the job.

When Sodapop and Two-Bit began a boisterous argument about Two-Bit's car, Ponyboy motioned us into the kitchen. We sat down at the table.

Melanie was looking around the room. "Where's your mother, Ponyboy?" None of our friends had mothers who worked, but maybe they needed extra

I stared at her, horrified, as soon as her question sank in and I remembered something I had read in the _Tulsa World _after Bob Sheldon was killed. It was an article about Ponyboy and his brothers, and one of the first things it revealed was that they were orphans. As I watched, Ponyboy's face fell. He stared at the scratched wood on the table and said flatly, "My parents are dead. My brother Darry takes care of me an' Sodapop."


	6. Library Meetings & Strange Behavior

**A/N: **Okay, I'm not going to claim to be a history buff or anything, but I read somewhere that the military draft held in 1969 was the first one since 1940. Does anyone know if that's true? S.E. Hinton said that Soda and Steve went to Vietnam and that Soda died sometime around October of 1968, but I can't really see him enlisting. I wanted to be accurate, though, so I wrote that he did. I'd be only too happy to change it if I'm wrong.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own _The Outsiders _or _That Was Then, This Is Now _by S.E. Hinton.

* * *

**Chapter Six: Library Meetings and Strange Behavior**

I shifted restlessly in my seat and stared blankly at the numbers sitting in front of me. They swam before my eyes, and I looked up at the clock on the wall for what had to be the millionth time in the past five minutes.

It still wasn't moving any faster. Maybe it was broken.

With a dejected sigh (the girl in front of me turned around to glare at me), I focused my attention once again on the test in front of me. Still, nothing made any more sense.

Trigonometry had been the bane of my existence all year. I was just the kind of person who worked well with words … and _not _numbers. It was like how English made no sense to Melanie – I could stare at a math problem all day and still not be able to make heads or tails of it. Melanie, meanwhile, could take one look at the same problem, switch some numbers around, and suddenly the right answer would be sitting in front of her like it had been there all along.

I hated math people.

I looked over at Melanie now. She was bent over her test, scribbling furiously like the paper would be snatched away from her at any second.

Melanie glanced up, caught my eye, and winked. She was in her element.

"You have five minutes," Ms. Howard announced from behind her desk, where she was immersed in the latest issue of _Reader's Digest. _Maybe she and Melanie could compare notes on Johnson and the war.

I tapped my pencil against my desk until Ms. Howard gave me a stern look – she never had liked me much.

Knowing I wanted to escape the classroom as quickly as possible, I stared blankly at the last problem. _Lines a1 and a2 intersect in two-dimensional space at a point to form acute angle A. The slope of a1 is the square root of 5. The cosA … _

After more shifting in my seat and another noisy sigh, I finally put my pencil to the paper and began to write –

The tinny sound of the bell jarred me from the problem, even though it couldn't possibly have been five minutes already.

But everyone else was standing up from their seats, gathering their belongings, and filing out the door in groups of two and three. I caught snatches of conversation – "I got square root of three, but I don't think it's right. It just didn't make sense. What did you get for number eight?"

"Do you need more time to work?" Ms. Howard was standing over my desk. I was glad that she'd at least had the decency to wait until the classroom was empty before she asked.

Still, my cheeks burned red as I mumbled, "Yes, ma'am," and looked back at my test.

I got the last problem solved somehow and turned in my test. I couldn't escape that classroom fast enough.

Usually if I needed more time on a math test (this wasn't the first time) Melanie would be waiting outside and we would both be late for our next class together, but today Melanie was nowhere in sight. I figured she wanted to get to the cafeteria. Lunch was her favorite class of the day.

But when I found our usual table, Mel wasn't there. I tapped Nancy McLaughlin, our sophomore alternate, on the shoulder.

"Hey, Chrissy!" She smiled at me, thrilled that one of the older cheerleaders had deigned to speak to her. Poor thing, she sat at our table completely ignored most days, a smile plastered on her face.

"Have you seen Melanie?" I asked. "I lost her after math class and I don't know where she went." There was no need to mention the disastrous test – Nancy wasn't in our math class, anyway.

Nancy shook her head. "No, I thought she was with you."

I sighed. "Well, I have to go to the library." I had chemistry homework due next period, and I haven't started it yet.

xxxx

The library was cool and quiet, a welcome break from the bustling cafeteria. As much as all of us liked being crammed into that one room for forty minutes a day, sometimes I thought our school was just too crowded.

I gave the librarian a weak smile when she frowned at me – I don't think she liked kids much – and glanced around for an empty table. There were a lot of them; not many kids wanted to give up their lunchtime to study. That was when I spotted Melanie. She was sitting at a table in the corner, bent over something I couldn't see … with Ponyboy Curtis sitting right next to her.

As if she could read my mind, Mel looked up and waved me over to their table. Now I didn't have a choice, because Ponyboy looked up too. I couldn't exactly leave, even though that was what I was tempted to do right now.

"Hi," Melanie whispered as I sat down across from them. I searched her face for any signs of insincerity – it was easy to tell when she wanted to be alone with a boy – but found none.

I greeted Ponyboy with an awkward smile, feeling like it was sophomore year all over again. I wondered how Melanie was able to act so normal after everything we'd found out last week.

xxxx

"How old is he?" I whispered when Darry disappeared into the kitchen. He looked at least twenty-five – not really old, just tough and smart, like he could handle anything.

Ponyboy grinned. "Twenty-two in January." He sounded proud that Melanie and I were so impressed by Darry's presence.

Darry was handsome, just like his brothers, but it was a more rugged kind of handsome. He was tall, over six feet, and strong. He looked every bit a construction worker, which was what Ponyboy said he was. When he met us, he grinned and I immediately saw a family resemblance.

"Ponyboy, have you done your homework?" Darry yelled out from the kitchen.

"Yeah, Darry, I did it during my free period."

"Do you need me to check your math?"

"No, I talked to Ms. Howard. I think I'm doing better on the homework."

Darry seemed satisfied with this and continued with what I assumed were dinner preparations. After a minute he came out and asked Melanie and me if we wanted to stay for dinner.

"Oh, no, I think we should be leaving soon," I said quickly, daring Melanie to contradict me.

Once Darry had disappeared into the kitchen again, Ponyboy said, "He won't let me get a job or anything. Says it'll interfere with my schoolwork." He didn't sound very happy about this.

"Will he let you get a job over the summer?" Melanie asked.

"He ain't gonna have a choice much longer." Ponyboy's face fell. "Soda enlisted a couple'a weeks ago. He's supposed to report to boot camp in six weeks, an' after that I'll need to get a job." He didn't say anything else. I wasn't sure if this was because he didn't want to talk about what must have been a financial issue or because he just didn't like talking about his brother leaving. I saw the way he looked at Sodapop; he idolized him.

I wasn't sure what to say, and I knew Melanie wasn't either. I'd never seen her speechless before. "I'm sorry, Ponyboy." I couldn't think of anything else to say.

He gave me a strange smile. "S'okay. God don't smile on the East Side. We all learned that a long time ago."

xxxx

"What are y'all working on?" I tried my best to sound casual.

Melanie sighed. "I have a quiz on Shakespeare next week. We were just about to start studying."

"Which play?" I asked.

"Um …" Mel bit her lip. "I don't really remember," she said sheepishly.

Ponyboy raised his eyebrows at me, and I muffled a giggle. "Well, do you remember what happens?" he asked, his greenish eyes dancing as he tried not to laugh.

"Well, there's this king … and some kind of soldier, I think …" She trailed off and wrinkled her nose.

"_Macbeth_?" Ponyboy ventured with a smirk.

Melanie snapped her fingers. "That's it!"

"Okay." Ponyboy took the book from her and opened it. "How far have you gotten in class?"

"Not real far. I think we're on Act II."

"At the beginning? When Fleance and Banquo are inside Macbeth's castle?"

"Um, I guess so." Melanie rolled her eyes at me. She hated English. "We were supposed to read the first three scenes by tomorrow. I tried, I really did, but nothing makes any sense. Why can't Shakespeare just say what he means?" I was surprised that she seemed genuinely frustrated. I'd sort of assumed that she had been exaggerating when she complained about English.

Ponyboy shrugged. "It's a play. No one's supposed to say what they mean."

Melanie groaned and laid her head on the table.

"It's okay," Ponyboy said to her. "Christine and I read this last year. Just start at the beginning of the first scene and read out loud. I'll help you understand what it means."

I was vaguely aware that I was supposed to be doing something else – I must have come to the library for a reason – but right now it didn't seem that important. Soon I was swept into a world of Shakespeare and Ponyboy.

Needless to say, my chemistry teacher was not happy the next period when I arrived in a happy daze with one homework problem done.

xxxx

"Thanks for the ride!" I slammed the door of Laurie's red Corvair and hurried up the front steps of my house. It was six already and my mother would have a cow if I wasn't changed in time for dinner, which started promptly at six-fifteen every night. I knew I shouldn't have let Laurie and Val talk Mel and me into riding with them after practice. Of course they would want to go to the DX to ogle Sodapop Curtis. As if I hadn't seen him often enough in the past few weeks.

The front door was unlocked, and I kicked off my saddle shoes and dropped my cheerleading bag in front of the door. "I'm home!" I hollered into the kitchen before hurrying up the stairs to change out of my uniform.

When I sat down at the table after changing into some nicer clothes, my mother was heaping food onto three plates and looking very angry indeed. Kelly, who was sitting across from me, was looking up at her with wide blue eyes, and I immediately understood what was going on. Daddy was late for dinner. Again.

"Hi, Mama." I tried to sound as cheerful as I could; sometimes, if we tried, we could get her out of her mood.

"Hello, Christine," my mother said stiffly. She was scooping lettuce onto Kelly's plate while Kelly eyed it suspiciously. "How was practice, dear?"

"Fine." I looked over at Kelly. She stared down at her plate. "Um … where's Daddy?"

Her lips formed a thin line. "Your father phoned from work to say that he would be home late." She was real mad, I could tell. My mother only referred to Dad as "your father" when she really wanted to use words that ladies didn't say in public.

Just this past summer, my father was always home by six o'clock sharp. Always. But when September came, he started staying at his office later. One night last month he didn't get home until eleven. I sat up with Kelly for two hours after their argument had ended, telling her stories until she fell asleep again.

"Okay." We blessed our meal and ate in silence. Even Kelly said nothing. She was only six, but she knew the score with our parents.

The three of us were finishing up the dishes when we finally heard his Cadillac in the driveway. A minute later, my father opened the front door and walked through the foyer and the living room into the eerily quiet kitchen. Was it only a few months ago that we all used to do the dishes together on week nights, splashing each other with soapy water and looking like something out of a cheesy movie?

"Hello," my father called out in a too-cheerful voice, like he knew what was coming but had deluded himself that he could forestall it with a smile. "Sorry I'm late."

"Richard," my mother said through her teeth, and I knew we were all in for another evening of forced conversation and phony smiles.

"Did you save me any?" My dad kissed my mom on the cheek.

"I always do," Mama said under her breath.

"Um." There was no way I would be able to get through another night of this, not after having my good mood from school ruined already. "I think I'll go call, uh, Melanie. About, you know, school or something."

"Don't stay on too long, and be sure to finish your homework," my mother said.

I dragged Kelly with me up the stairs. I could still hear my parents making stiff conversation with each other, like they were strangers set up on a date my mutual friends instead of a couple that had been married for seventeen years.

"Chrissy?" Kelly's voice sounded small. "Are Mama and Daddy gonna be mad forever?"

"Of course not, Smelly." I ushered her into her bedroom. "It's just a dry spell. Everyone has them. Mama and Daddy will be fine. I promise." They would. My father just needed some sense talked into him, I knew it. This had happened before – Melanie was just too young to remember.

Kelly smiled, satisfied, and I went back into my bedroom, spread my homework out on my bed, and grabbed the phone sitting on my nightstand to call Melanie and vent about my parents.

I dialed the all-too-familiar number and waited.

Melanie was out of breath when she answered the phone. "Hello?" she gasped as I rolled onto my stomach and pulled out the section of the _Tulsa World _that I had stolen that morning. I really didn't feel like doing history homework.

"Hey, Mel," I said. "What's up?"

"Oh, hey, Christine." Her voice sounded shaky, and she sniffed after she said my name.

"Are you okay?" I propped my chin in my hand and focused on the crossword puzzle in front of me. "You sound kind of funny."

"Yeah. I …" There was a pause. "I think I'm allergic to my new shampoo." She sniffled again.

"I'm sorry." She had seemed fine at school today.

I could almost see her shrug as she said, "I'll stop using it. I didn't like it much anyway. So what's going on?"

I was kind of taken aback. Melanie loved to talk about herself. She would do it all day if she could. "Are you sure you're okay?" I asked again.

"Yes, Christine, I'm sure." She sounded irritated now.

"All right." I wasn't going to bug her about it; she hated that. She would tell me if something was wrong. "Well, my parents are arguing again. Well, not arguing, exactly. It's more like they smile at each other and pretend to be happy when they both know they're mad at each other. Do your parents ever do that?"

There was a sigh on the other end of the line. "Yeah, all the time," Melanie said. "Don't worry about it, Christine. Your parents are completely in love with each other. They'll be fine."

"Yeah, I guess so. I just wish they'd talk to each other, you know?"

Melanie hummed her assent and was quiet again.

I looked back at the crossword. _Nest. _Five letters. I filled in A-E-R-I-E.

_Czar._

"Hey, Mel?"

"Yeah?"

"What's a five-letter word for _czar_?"

"What?"

"Never mind."

A long pause. "Christine, are you doing one of your crosswords again?"

I shrugged, even though she couldn't see it. "Yeah," I admitted.

"Titan," Melanie said almost immediately.

"What?"

"A five-letter word for czar. Titan," she repeated.

I frowned in surprise, but when I checked the answers, she was right. "Thanks," I said absently, and wrote T-I-T-A-N in the five white boxes for 11 Down.

"Christine?"

"Mmmn?" I was focused on the next crossword clue.

"I have to go. I'm beat." She did sound tired. "I think I'm just going to bed early tonight. You know, greet the new day and all that."

I laughed out loud. Melanie hated waking up in the morning. In fact, she hated mornings. Most days, she wasn't fully awake until at least second period. "Mel, you aren't exactly a morning person. And you're never tired at night." She was usually awake for a full hour after I went to bed.

She laughed. "I know! That's why I have to go to bed. My mother told me I was acting cranky at dinner. Can you imagine? She thinks I'm not getting enough sleep." Melanie's mother liked to get ten hours of "beauty sleep" every night.

"All right. I have history stuff to do, anyway. Good night."

"See you tomorrow." She hung up, and I reluctantly put my crossword aside and opened my history textbook.


	7. Close Encounters & Unexpected Findings

**A/N: **I can't believe I'm actually posting this. I was planning to put the story on hiatus, to be honest. I still might; these chapters are getting harder to write.

Ah, well. Happy Good Fic Day!

**Disclaimer: **As always, I do not own _The Outsiders_, _That Was Then, This Is Now_, or any of their characters. Everything belongs to Susie except Christine, Melanie, and their friends. Well, Christine is part Hinton's, too.

* * *

**Chapter Seven: Unexpected Findings and Close Encounters**

"Hey! There you are." Melanie materialized beside my locker after first period.

"Here I am," I deadpanned. "By my locker. Between classes. Gee, this world just gets stranger and stranger." I put my history book away and reached for my English notebook. English class was the only one I had with Ponyboy and I didn't want to be late. Sometime between our library encounter and now, he had started sitting next to me in class.

Melanie rolled her eyes at my sarcasm, but she waited patiently for me to ask her what was so exciting that she just had to find me now when her next class was across the school from here.

When I didn't say anything – I was focused on putting my English books in my bag – Melanie apparently couldn't stand to hold out on me any longer and blurted, "You were nominated for the Winter Court!"

_That _got my attention.

"What!" I yelped, and dropped my English books on my foot in surprise.

This drew the attention of most of the students in the hallway. Melanie glared at them until they looked away, then turned back to me. I was on the ground, gathering my books, so she waited until I was back on my feet.

"Didn't you read the announcements board? This is so exciting!" She squeezed my arm.

I wasn't quite so enthusiastic. "Melanie, how did this even happen? I didn't want to be nominated!" Snow Princesses were like prom queens, only for the Winter Ball, and there were three – one from each class. There was no way I could win – I couldn't imagine how I had even been nominated. Snow Princess was the kind of thing that was made for girls like Melanie. Then a wave of realization hit me. "Did you nominate me? I told you I didn't want –"

"I didn't!" Mel was gushing with excitement. "Someone else did. You really don't want to be a Snow Princess?"

Of course I did. Who wouldn't want it? It was like winning a giant popularity contest. But being nominated didn't mean I would win. In fact, I probably wouldn't.

"Wanting something doesn't mean it's going to happen, Mel," I said.

She looked at me for a second and opened her mouth to say something, but the warning bell rang just then, drowning out her words. "We'll talk about this at lunch," she said before bolting off down the hall.

I slammed my locker shut, feeling much more irritable than I had during first period, and was halfway down the hall when the late bell rang. I cursed under my breath and took off running. It was much easier to get places when the hallway was deserted, but I still skidded into English two minutes late.

"I'm glad you decided to join us, Christine," Miss Belmont said with her lilting Georgia accent. She smiled reassuringly, like she was trying to let me know she wasn't mad, and I tried to imagine being afraid of her. She was tiny, only five foot two or so, with delicate features and a soft, mild voice; she was also the only reason half the boys in here were taking accelerated English.

I blushed nonetheless when I realized everyone's eyes were on me and blushed harder when Ponyboy grinned at me from across the room. I tried to slide into the last unoccupied seat as inconspicuously as I could. It worked, and soon everyone's eyes were back on Miss Belmont.

She had been writing on the board and only now stepped back to let us see what she had written.

"_Romeo and Juliet: _A Classic Tale of Love, Prejudice, and Tragedy," she had written in large, looping script. Somehow, her handwriting managed to look flowing and feminine even in smudge-prone white chalk.

I was watching Ponyboy take notes when a voice near me caught me attention. "Hey," the girl beside me whispered.

When I looked over at her, she smiled. "I heard you were nominated for Winter Court."

Great.

xxxx

"So, I heard about that Snow ... Winter ... whatsit –"

I looked up and glared into Ponyboy's grinning face, wondering if he somehow knew that I was ready to punch the next person who said that to me. One look into his piercing eyes and I didn't doubt it.

The library was the only place I could think of where Melanie and the others wouldn't be able to find me. Anyway, Melanie was talking to her home ec teacher about her latest project (apparently the teacher didn't consider spaghetti to be a sufficient meal for her final cooking grade) and probably wouldn't come looking for me for at least another fifteen minutes or so, when she eventually remembered she was supposed to give me a ride home. Or decided she wanted someone to talk to – whichever came first.

"I'm sure you've heard that enough today, though." He pulled a chair up from another table and, before I could object, snatched my book right out of my hands. "Crossword puzzles?" He examined the book. "In pen …"

I made a grab for the book, but Ponyboy held it out of my reach.

"Hey, you missed this one. _Studies under a microscope _…" I watched as he filled in _A-M-O-E-B-A-S _in a boyish scrawl.

"Can I have that back?" I swiped at the book again and missed.

"I'm not done yet," he said, twirling my pen between his fingers. I frowned and tried to act angry as I watched him fill in eight clues in two minutes, but it was actually sort of nice to sit there and watch him bite his lower lip and push his hair out of his eyes in concentration. Then something occurred to me. "Hey, what are you still doing here?" I didn't usually see him this long after dismissal.

"Two-Bit has detention." Ponyboy scratched his nose absently, leaving a smudge of ink behind. When I reached for the book this time, he let me take it back. "He said his English teacher an' him had drastically different interpretations of a poem they were reading."

I let out a breath of laughter; I couldn't help it.

"You finished the whole thing!" I swatted him with the book (he yelped in pain) and looked down at the page he had filled in. My eyebrows shot up. "You read Homer, Ponyboy? We never studied the _Odyssey_."

He turned red. "No."

"And Hemingway?" I studied his writing.

"That one was a lucky guess."

"An' …" I had to laugh when he rubbed his nose again, leaving more ink there.

Ponyboy smiled, almost indulgently, and rubbed his nose, leaving more ink there. "You laughin' at me?"

"No." I covered my mouth until I was able to control my giggles.

"What's so funny, then?" He was mocking me now. His face was inches away from mine; we had been trying to be quiet, but it really wasn't working. I stared into his green eyes and wondered vaguely where the librarian was. Ponyboy was close enough for me to count each freckle on his nose …

Abruptly, Ponyboy pulled back and sat back in his chair. He was just in time – a split second later, the librarian poked her head around the bookshelf closest to our table. "Shhh!" she hissed. "You children are in the library!"

I glanced at Ponyboy. He was staring at the table, his cheeks pink, but otherwise gave no indication that anything unusual had happened.

Once the librarian was gone, Ponyboy glanced around, then stood up and whispered, "Come on."

I glanced down at my watch. Melanie had been gone for twenty minutes. I wondered if she had left without me. It wouldn't be the first time. She's kind of scatterbrained. "All right," I said finally.

We sat down on the front steps of the school so Melanie and Two-Bit could find us when they left. I was glad that it was so cold because I was sure I was still blushing, and when I blush, I blush something awful. The wind cooled my burning cheeks, though, and whipped my long hair around my face, shielding it from Ponyboy.

We sat there quietly for a minute, but it wasn't uncomfortable the way it would be if I were talking on the phone or talking with a girl friend. Then it's like the silence is umbearable and one of you has to break it or you might drown in it. This silence was different – comfortable, I guess. I knew Ponyboy didn't talk a lot, and I didn't either. It was actually sort of nice.

Ponyboy flipped up the collar of his leather jacket to create a shield from the wind, then lit up and cigarette and took a drag. I watched him for a minute. I could usually read people real well, but for some reason I could never tell what he was thinking, even with such an expressive face.

"Ponyboy, can I ask you something?" I said after a minute. I didn't want to break into his concentration – I could tell he was thinking about something – but there was something that had been bothering me for a while and I didn't know if I would ever get a better chance to ask.

He looked at me warily. "You can ask anything you want, I guess," he said, "but I can't guarantee I'll answer it."

I paused. I wasn't sure exactly how to ask, because it seemed like it might be a sore subject, so I just blurted it out. "How do you know Cherry Valance?"

He blinked in surprise, then frowned. "What makes you think I know her?"

"Well, that time in the cafeteria, do you remember? When I saw you with Two-Bit? You looked at her like you knew her or something, but then you just ran off." I watched for a sign of recognition but got nothing.

I waited for Ponyboy to say something. After a minute I was convinced I had offended him or something, but then he spoke up. "You know she was going with that So – that guy, Bob Sheldon, right? When … when –"

Without thinking, I interrupted him. "When your friend killed him, right?"

Ponyboy winced visibly, but I think he was glad that I said it, so he didn't have to. "It's sort of a long story."

I shrugged and glanced up and down for any sign of Melanie's red Mustang. I didn't see it anywhere. "Looks like I have a long time."

He told me everything, everything that had happened with Bob and Cherry and his friends, Johnny and Dallas – he called him Dally – right back to when he was jumped one day on his way home from the movies. He was right – it was a long story. But I just sat and listened, hugging my knees against the cold, while he talked. I had never heard him talk near as much as he was talking now. There was something reassuring about listening to his quiet, steady voice, even while some of the things he told me made me gasp in horror.

"Gosh," Ponyboy said once, "I don't think I ever told anyone this much. Everyone else already knew or just assumed they did from listenin' to what other people were sayin'." He paused and looked at me. "You're a real good listener. I usually don't talk this much." People told me that a lot, but somehow it was different coming from him. I didn't know why.

By the time he was finished, it was already getting darker out, and a glance at my watch showed me that it was almost six. I jumped to my feet in alarm just as Two-Bit came running around the side of the building.

"Ponyboy!" he hollered before launching into a stream of curses that made me turn bright red. When he reached us, he slugged Pony a good one across the cheek. I gasped.

"Kid, you just about had me scared to death," Two-Bit said, and then swore some more. I was actually tempted to cover my ears. "I been all over the goddamned school lookin' for you. You said you would be in the library! What are you doin' out here? I called Darry from the pay phone, and he's fixin' to beat my head in when I get over there. Damn it, Ponyboy, don't you think?"

Ponyboy was horrified, I could tell. "Gosh, Two-Bit, I'm sorry. We were in the library, but you were runnin' late an' I figured …"

Two-Bit seemed to notice me just then (I had sort of moved behind Ponyboy when Two-Bit started yelling) and calmed down a little bit. "Now you see here? Makin' me swear like that in front of a lady … I sure am sorry, darlin'. I didn't see you there," he said.

"It's okay," I said, glad he was done hollering.

He looked around. "Say, where's that cute blond friend of yours? Ain't you two a packaged deal or somethin'?"

I blushed. "That's a good question." I looked around the parking lot, like maybe this would make Melanie's car appear. "She was supposed to be bringing me home from school but I never found her. I think she might've left without me."

"I can drive you home if you'd like," Two-Bit said. He didn't look so mad anymore, but I could see the worry in his eyes. He must've though he'd lost Ponyboy.

"Um, that's all right," I said as politely as I could. "I can just call my parents. There's a pay phone right –"

"Aw, come on," Two-Bit said. "It's too cold out to be waitin' out here. The school's already closed, so you can't go back in. I promise Betsy will be on her best behavior today."

I giggled a little and considered the offer. I was going to be late to dinner either way, and it was awful cold outside. "Well, all right, I guess so," I said finally. I stuffed my crossword book in my book bag and buttoned up my cardigan – I hadn't realized it was so cold out.

"Then you can wait in the car, and _you_" – Two-Bit smacked Pony on the back of the head – "are going to call Darry and tell him why we're late."

xxxx

"Whose car was that?" my mother asked when I got home. She had been setting the table for dinner and humming to herself when I unlocked the front door, which could only mean that Dad had gotten home early tonight. Mom didn't even seem to care that I was late. She had changed and put on her nice pearls, too, which meant Dad had brought her flowers. Whatever fight they'd been having must have ended.

I had been drifting along in a happy daze. "Just a friend from school," I said vaguely when I realized she was waiting for an answer.

Usually she would have pressed me for more information, so I knew it was a tribute to her good mood that Mom didn't ask me anything else. "That's nice, dear," she said instead.

I was on my way upstairs to change when Mom called after me, "Melanie called while you were out. She sounded upset. Were you supposed to meet her after school?"

_Oops._ I bit my lip guiltily. "I'll call her now," I yelled over my shoulder.

"Wait until after dinner," Mom said. "Your father should be down in a minute. Will you get Kelly? She's in her room."

Once I had brought Kelly down – dragged her, really, since tonight we were having meat loaf – and sat down at the table, my mother dropped the bomb. "Chrissy, I didn't know you were running for … Snow Princess, was it?"

I choked on a bite of corn. "Who told you?" I muttered after recovering from a long coughing fit.

"Melanie mentioned it on the phone."

_Thanks a lot, Mel. _Maybe I _wouldn't _call her after dinner.

"What's a snow princess?" my sister asked.

"You don't _run _for Snow Princess," I corrected my mother. "You have to be nominated. They pick one girl from each grade and crown them at the Winter Ball. Don't you remember? Melanie won last year."

"And you were nominated?" Mom was beaming. "That's great, sweetie! We can go shopping for a dress and …"

I almost groaned at the thought of going dress shopping with my mother. "Uh, no, I'll probably just go shopping with Melanie and Val or something." Was I a horrible person for not wanting to go shopping with my mother? "I mean, I don't even know who I'm going with yet or anything, so I'll just go later on."

My mother's face fell a little. "Well, okay," she said.

"Um, but there's another dance in the spring, before prom. Maybe we could go shopping then." Dang it, that sad face got me every time.

I called Melanie after dinner. She answered after three rings. "Christine?"

"If that's how you answer your phone all the time, I'd be a little worried," I said, attempting a joke. "I mean, what if it was a boy or something?" I hoped she wouldn't be mad about having to leave without me today.

"Where the hell were you, Christine? I looked all over school. I even went to the library!"

"Well, I waited for twenty minutes when you said five," I said, instantly defensive. "Forgive me for thinking you weren't coming."

She sighed. "Look, I'm really not in the mood right now. My parents saw my history test and went ape. Of course they would pick now to start caring about what I'm doing at school, right? I was doing fine before then. Did they give a rat's ass that I aced my English test? Of course not."

"I'm sorry," I said absently. I was thinking about Ponyboy and the story he had told me after school today.

"Yeah, well …" She sighed again. "I have to go. We can discuss campaigning strategies tomorrow, so don't be running late! I'll pick you up."

I laughed. "You're crazy, Mel."

"'Night."

"Good night." I hung up and rolled over until I was lying on my back. I stared up at the ceiling with a dazed smile, finally left to myself, and ran over the afternoon's events, minute by minute, in my mind until my mother yelled up the stairs that my homework had better be finished.


	8. Studying Sessions & Meeting Her Mother

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing except a vivid imagination_. The Outsiders _and _That Was Then, This Is Now _are both property of S.E. Hinton. I do not own Shakespeare's _Romeo and Juliet_, but technically he doesn't either.

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**Chapter Eight: Studying Sessions and Meeting Her Mother**

"You mean you actually bend over an ironing board and … _iron _it?" Ponyboy looked one part fascinated and two parts horrified. "Right there in your bedroom?"

"Well, how else would we get our hair straight?" I frowned in mock confusion. "You didn't think it came that way, did you?"

Pony glanced sideways at my hair, even though I usually set it in curls. "Sorry I asked," he muttered.

"Most guys are."

We were dragging our feet on our way outside after dismissal. Ponyboy didn't want to miss his ride, but I had ten minutes to wait before Melanie showed up to drive me home, so I wasn't in any hurry. Everything would be so much easier if I had my own car. I was sixteen; I had my license. But my parents stood firm every time I asked for my own car. I didn't know why; I knew we could afford it.

"Hey, I ain't like most guys," Ponyboy said.

"You're not?" I giggled.

"Well, that's what the girls tell me," he said with bravado, putting an arm around me.

I let it rest for a minute before shrugging it off. "What girls? You don't have any sisters."

"Maybe, but my mother always said I was special on the inside," Ponyboy said.

"Get out of town," I scoffed.

Since Ponyboy and I had talked in the library, things had lightened up between us. I can't really describe it, but there was something different. I guess it's easier to talk to someone when you know a few things about them. It was sort of funny – me talking to him, I mean. I'm pretty quiet, usually, and only a few of my friends could really get me talking, like more than a few sentences at a time. Melanie could; at least, when she was paying attention, she could. But talking to Ponyboy was different from talking to Mel or Laurie or Valerie somehow.

"Okay," Ponyboy relented, "she said I was beautiful on the outside, too."

I couldn't help laughing, even though I was learning that he could be real exasperating when he wanted to be. Stubborn as a mule, too – I'd never met someone so stubborn.

Pony and I had missed a lot of the student traffic since I was running late, but we were still pushed out the back door by other kids eager for freedom after a long day in our stuffy classrooms. By the time we reached the back parking lot, we had been bumped and jostled every which way.

I saw Two-Bit standing next to his old junker, talking to one of the Shepard boys, if the kid's jacket was any indication. He waved when he saw us. I waved back.

"I'd better go," Ponyboy said when Two-Bit started tapping an imaginary watch. "It wouldn't be the first time if he left without me."

I watched him lope off and smiled when he turned around and waved.

"Christine?"

I nearly jumped out of my skin. The voice came from right next to me.

"Melanie," I said in surprise. "You're early."

She frowned. "No, I'm not. I said I'd be here in ten minutes. Are you ready to leave?"

"Oh. Yeah. Yeah, sure." I followed her over to her red Mustang, threw my school books in the backseat, and jumped in beside her.

Melanie started the engine with a loud roar and we screeched out of the parking lot doing at least forty-five. "You okay?" she asked after a minute when she noticed I wasn't saying anything. I wondered if she really cared. It must get boring listening to yourself talk all the time … eventually. Leave it to Mel to just realize now that I hardly contributed to our conversations anymore.

"Sure. Fine," I said.

She glanced at me sideways. "I saw you talking to Ponyboy."

"Yeah?" I was instantly defensive.

"Yeah. I just wanted to make sure –"

I cut her off. "What? Am I not allowed to talk to him?"

Melanie sighed. "Christine, please stop putting words in my mouth. Just once, listen to what I'm saying _before _you judge."

"Just once? How many times a day do I listen to what you're saying?" I said.

"I'm really not in the mood to fight with you, Christine. I'm just trying to make sure you know the score, all right? Just remember there are certain … limitations. Social limitations, I mean. It's one thing to do homework in the library together, but – well, remember it shouldn't go any further than that. You have a reputation."

I stared at her incredulously. "So it's okay for you to do whatever you want, but suddenly _my _reputation's on the line?"

"You know that's not what I meant," Melanie said patiently. "I'm just worried –"

"Worried, my ass," I spat. "What about all that time you spent flirting nonstop after you went out with Andy?"

"That's not the same, and you know it," said Melanie. "Sure, Pony's cute and all, but he's not worth it, you know? It's just not worth the risk."

"I might recall you were singing a different tune last month," I reminded her.

She rolled her eyes at me. "I asked him to tutor me, Christine! Can you blame me? And it's not like I was planning on going on a date with him or anything." Her expression displayed disbelief that I would even think of something like that.

I raised an eyebrow. "And how does Bryon Douglas factor into this, exactly?"

Another of Mel's famous I'm-carrying-the-weight-of-the-word sighs. "Oh, come on. Everyone and their grandmother has dated him. Do you remember how long that lasted?"

I did. Melanie and Bryon had lasted three weeks, five dates, and two make-out sessions. Pretty average for a guy like Bryon Douglas.

"So that's it?" I said after a minute. "Ponyboy's just another Bryon?"

"'S far as I'm concerned," Melanie said with a shrug.

Except they lasted zero weeks, zero dates, and zero make-out sessions, I thought with just a touch of smugness. And that was when I realized. Ponyboy _was _just another boy as far as Mel was concerned. After a day of consideration, she was head over heels for three weeks before calling it quits. It was dead average for one of Melanie's crushes. So why had it seemed so much worse to me than any other boy? Was it because Melanie never really stopped flirting with any attractive guy she'd dated or had a crush on? Or was it because for me, Ponyboy was turning into anything _but_ just another boy?

"Look, Christine," Melanie said, and I realized with a jolt that she'd been talking to me. "I don't want to argue. Just be careful, dig?" We turned onto my street and stopped in front of my house a minute later.

"Yeah, I dig," I said. I decided I wouldn't mention that Pony and I were supposed to work on our English assignment together tomorrow.

"See you tomorrow. Don't forget, be nice to everyone! Everyone at school has a vote for Snow Princess. And don't forget to call me tonight. I want to go Christmas shopping this weekend."

That got me. "What? Why?"

Mel giggled. "What do you mean? It's the fourth already."

"_December _fourth?" It hadn't even snowed yet.

"Yes, Christine, December fourth."

"Oh." That was news to me. "Well, I guess we should, then, huh?"

Melanie shook her head, laughing. She was laughing at me. "Where has your head been lately, Christine?" she asked.

I was starting to wonder the same thing.

xxxx

Pony dropped into the seat beside me in English class the next day, rubbing his eyes in exhaustion, and immediately put his head down on his desk and closed his eyes.

"What's the matter?" I asked him. "You look like death warmed over."

"Aw, thanks." He opened his eyes and shot me a sleepy but dimpled grin.

"Are you okay?"

He yawned. "Yeah, just real tired. I was up late studying last night."

I racked my brains, trying to think of any test we had today, and couldn't think of any. We were taking most of the same classes, except he had a free period and I had home ec. Still, I decided not to bother him any more. He really did look exhausted – purple shadows had formed under his eyes that I hadn't noticed yesterday. "All right. Do you still want to study after school?"

"Huh?" Ponyboy yawned again. "Oh, yeah. Sure." He put his head back down on his desk as the late bell rang and Ms. Belmont came in, shutting the door behind her.

"Good afternoon," she said with her usual drawl. "Did everyone finish reading Act I of _Romeo and Juliet _for today?"

There was a general murmur of assent.

"Lovely. Why don't you open your books and we can start where we left off. Scene four, line fifty-six." She spoke above the rustling of opening books. "Who would like to start? Ponyboy?"

Pony's head jerked up from his desk. "Um … yes, ma'am." He opened his book, glancing over at mine as he did so.

I pointed to the first line.

"Right." Ponyboy cleared his throat and began reading.

"_She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes  
__In shape no bigger than an agate stone  
__On the forefinger of an alderman,  
__Drawn with a team of little atomi  
__Over men's noses as they lie asleep.  
__Her wagon spokes … _um,_ made of long spinners' legs _…_"_

Ms. Belmont, thankfully, stopped him there with a concerned look before he lost his place. She liked to make us read out loud in front of the class – she said it would help familiarize us with the text – and Ponyboy had always done fine before.

"Who wants to explain what Shakespeare is talking about here?" she asked.

A basketball player whose name I couldn't remember raised his hand.

I turned to Pony while the other kid launched into the kind of long-winded explanation that only teenage boys wanting attention from a pretty teacher could give. "Are you sure you're okay?" I asked again. He was running his hands through his hair, staring at the words in my book like he hadn't just read them out loud.

"Fine. Just tired," he said again, adding a reassuring smile for emphasis.

He didn't _look_ fine. Were all of my friends just trying to drive me crazy? Between Pony's lack of sleep and Melanie's shampoo allergy, I was starting to wonder what I was missing.

"How much sleep did you get?" I whispered.

Pony scoffed like this was a ridiculous question, but I kept looking at him, waiting for an answer. "Well …" He scratched his head sheepishly.

At my horrified stare, he added, "I think I nodded off around three or so."

"What were you really doing?" I demanded.

His eyes narrowed defensively. "That ain't none of your business."

"It is when you decide to take your moods out on me," I told him, stung, and turned away. I wasn't about to interfere if he didn't want me to bother.

"Hey," Pony whispered.

I turned back to face him.

His head was back on his desk, but he smiled. "You look real nice in yellow."

I scoffed and took my book back from him before he decided to use it as a pillow, but I knew I was blushing and I could feel my smile. "Real nice in yellow" indeed. That boy was just something else altogether.

xxxx

"Stop slouching, boy!" I smacked him with my copy of _Romeo and Juliet_.

"Ow!" Ponyboy sat up and scowled. "I'm tired."

"We aren't done," I scolded, wielding my book at him again. "In fact, we've hardly gotten anywhere. Could you try to focus now?"

We had been "reading" for an hour and had only gotten through the first page. For someone who had read this play twice already, Ponyboy was sure having trouble focusing on what he was doing. He at least seemed more awake than he was during English class, but he was still acting real strangely, persisting with idle small talk whenever I tried to bring up anything more serious than our lastest French assignment. It was almost like he was trying to avoid having a real conversation.

"I'm tired of focusing," Pony said, turning his attention to the television that had been playing the entire time we'd been trying to do homework.

I clucked my tongue, annoyed. "Ponyboy, this is due tomorrow, and who knows if you'll decide to have another late-night study party tonight. We have to get this done."

Ponyboy leaned back into the couch. "All right, fine. Why don't you read?"

I cocked an eyebrow. "You haven't read anything."

"Reading was your idea."

"Ponyboy! I'd be better off studying with Two-Bit at this rate, and he's not even in our class. Do you want to tell me what's wrong?"

Pony sighed. "I'm sorry. I just feel sort of … I don't know … like I shouldn't be here." When he saw my confused look, he added hastily, "Your house is so different from mine. You can't pretend you haven't noticed."

"Well …" I said reluctantly.

Ponyboy raised his eyebrows skeptically.

"Yeah. I'm sorry. If you feel uncomfortable, you can –"

"No, I'm sorry," he said. "I'm being stupid. We can start if you want." He rubbed his eyes again and looked around the room. I sat stiffly, feeling like he was studying me instead of my house. I was starting to regret insisting on him coming over here instead of going to his house. You'd be hard-pressed to find a house more different than his.

"Well, if you want to tell me why you're so tired …"

"Is that a bribe?"

The lock turned in the front door just then. Pony was instantly rigid and upright again. I hurried over to the television, which had been playing in the background, and switched it off.

"Chrissy?" my mother called. I heard her set down a few shopping bags, and then her heels were clicking on the marble floor.

"In here, Mama," I said loud enough for her to hear.

Her face appeared in the doorway a minute later. Ponyboy stood up, and I did too. I watched my mother's expression change from pleasant to surprised to disapproving to polite in the space of a second. If I hadn't see it myself, I wouldn't believe it was possible to change expressions so fast. "Well," she said. "You didn't tell me you were having a friend over."

"I thought you weren't going to be back until dinner," I said as Kelly trotted into the room, toting a patent-leather pocketbook to match her shoes. I saw Pony wince and immediately regretted what I had just said.

"I'd completely forgotten – the Ladies' Garden Club meeting is tonight at the country club. I though I'd stop by to see you before I go check on the flowers," my mother said. "And Kelly didn't want to come with me. I _was _going to ask if you would mind watching her tonight but if you're busy …" She trailed off and glanced at Ponyboy again. "Are you going to introduce me to your friend?" she asked carefully. I really didn't like the way she was talking.

"Mama, this is Ponyboy Curtis." I could tell Pony was waiting to see if my mother would initiate a handshake. She didn't.

"Oh!" I could tell my mother was taken aback by his name. "Well … uh …" She sounded like she was gathering up the engery for something. "It's nice to meet you, Pony … boy. Oh, Kelly, stop that!" she added impatiently. Kelly was tugging urgently at my mother's skirt and peering around her at Ponyboy with round blue eyes.

"Christine, may I talk to you in the kitchen?" my mother said with a strained smile.

I glanced at Ponyboy out of the corner of my eye. He looked miserable. Why had I done this? "Sure," I said.

I followed my mother out of the living room and into the kitchen. She put her hands on her tiny hips while I leaned against the counter. She watched me, waiting for me to say something. I slid my silver cross back and forth on the chain around my neck. "Mama …"

"Chrissy, you know I like to be notified when we have company." Mom was using the tone she always used when she was angry but didn't want to cause a scene.

"I didn't know you were going to be home so soon," I said.

She sighed. "I really don't have the patience for this."

"Why?" I was getting irritated. "Would you be this bugged if it were, say, Melanie over here? Or David Richmond?"

"Please do not use slang. It's not ladylike."

We both jumped when the telephone rang.

"Hello?" Mom put on a cheerful, everything-is-fine tone. She paused. "Oh, hello, dear. I hope you're leaving the office soon; I'll need you to make dinner tonight." Another pause. "Oh." Long pause. "Yes, dear, I understand. Don't work too late." Pause. "I love you too. Goodbye."

She hung up. "Do you remember whether we gave Connie the night off tonight?"

"Mama, that's not what we were talking about," I said. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Ponyboy, but –"

"_Christine_!" My name came out more harshly than she'd intended, because she cringed. I wondered if she was in a bad mood because Dad was working late again or if she just didn't want to yell at me in front of company. "Is Connie coming tonight?"

I stared at her, still stunned. "Connie never comes on Thursdays," I said. I knew Mom wouldn't listen to me now. When she had set her mind to avoiding a subject, she could avoid it forever and a day if she really tried.

"Right. Well, do you think you can handle dinner tonight?"

"I think so." I had been known to burn spaghetti, but my mother had clearly forgotten this.

She sighed and took several deep breaths to calm herself. "Thank you, darling. I should be back by nine at the latest. Just make sure Kelly doesn't break anything, would you? I think shopping wore her out, but she's so excited about her birthday …" Mom trailed off and looked at me with an unreadable expression.

"Sure," I said blankly. Why was she acting like this? She and my father were the ones who always told me that we were all people and that money only separated us because we all let it. Times were changing. Why was everyone so set in their ways?

"So you two were just studying?" Mom asked out of nowhere.

"Mama!" My face heated up. "Of course. We were reading a play. For English."

I was almost offended when she looked relieved. "He didn't –"

"No, Mama."

"But –"

"_No_, Mama."

She again, resigned. "All right. Just make sure – well, you have a good head on your shoulders." _Then why don't you trust me? _"Just remember he isn't the same as the rest of your friends, all right?"

"Yes, Mama." It saved time not to argue.

I followed Mom back into the living room, where we found Kelly perched on the couch next to Pony, talking his ear off about her birthday party this weekend. "I'll be seven," she was saying. "Then I'll be allowed to know things. Chrissy says that seven is almost grown-up, practically."

My mother cleared her throat, and Ponyboy stood.

"Ponyboy, I hate to be rude, but we're really in for a rather hectic night, so if you and Chrissy are finished with your homework …"

Pony avoided my eyes. I couldn't look at him either. I was humiliated. "That's all right, ma'am. I should probably be getting home anyway. I told my friend Tw – Keith that I would call him from a pay phone, and my family's probably expecting me home anyway."

"Any other time we would be able to offer you a ride," Mom said, but her tone sounded stiff and insincere.

"That's all right," Ponyboy said again. He turned to Kelly, who was fidgeting in her seat (I guess even she could sense the thick tension in the room). "It was very nice talking to you, miss." He extended a hand to shake, and she took it with a giggle. "Thank you for your help, Christine. It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Collins."

He shrugged on his brown leather jacket, which he had hung on our coat rack, said "Good night," and left, closing the door behind him.

* * *

**Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.**


	9. Power Plays & Rising Stakes

**Disclaimer: **Hinton owns all.

* * *

**Chapter Nine: Power Plays and Rising Stakes**

Cherry and Tricia cornered me in the hall after homeroom on Wednesday morning to inform me that there would be an impromptu cheerleading practice after school that day, even though Melanie was sick.

"What? Why?" I asked. My mother wanted me home right after school. After that night Ponyboy came over last week, she'd made a point of making sure she was there to greet me when I got home from school. I had the feeling it was more of an issue with the people I associated with than with whether I got my homework finished before dinner. She'd never minded before, as long as it was done.

"What do you mean, why?" Tricia snapped. For someone who had bought so strongly into all the peace-and-love craze going around school, she sure hadn't gotten any nicer. "There's a basketball game on Friday."

"There's a basketball game every Friday," I pointed out, even though I probably would have been better off not saying anything.

Tricia tossed her long blond hair. It almost reached her waist, since it was naturally curly but she wore it straight. The other girls were saying she woke up real early every morning so her mother could iron it for her. That would be just like Tricia. Tricia wasn't as pretty as Cherry, even if she did spend all day grooming herself, but she more than made up for it in attitude. Maybe that was why so many boys chased after her. "Chrissy, we're having practice today," she said firmly. "I'm busy after school tomorrow."

I sighed. My mother wasn't going to be happy.

"Are you going this way?" Cherry asked me. This was a habit of hers; trying to make up for whatever catty thing Tricia said by being extra nice to you. I remembered what Pony had told me about her and wasn't surprised.

"Yeah, I'm coming." I slammed my locker shut and we started off down the hall. It was getting less crowded already.

"So, Chrissy, who are you going to the dance with?" Tricia asked.

I blushed and hugged my books closer. "I don't know yet," I admitted, hating myself for feeling so ashamed. I knew what Tricia's and Cherry's faces looked like before I even saw them.

"No one asked you?" Tricia asked. She looked mad; Cherry looked incredulous.

"Well, a couple of boys asked me," I said, carefully avoiding looking at them. "I just … I don't know." I wanted to tell them that none of them were the right guy, but I knew I'd sound stupid. And then, of course, they'd want to know just who, exactly, the right guy was, and then I would get a Melanie-style lecture from both of them … No, it was much easier to just not say anything.

Tricia looked at me sternly. "Has Dave Richmond asked you yet?"

"What?" I said a little too quickly. "Um, no." I looked from Tricia to Cherry and back again. "How do you know if he's going to ask me?" I demanded, annoyed at the look on their faces.

"Everyone knows, Chrissy," Cherry said like it was obvious. "That boy is dead gone over you."

I stared. "What?" We'd only gone out once. He asked me out a few weeks later, but I'd said no. And we'd hardly spoken two words to each other since then. I only saw him around school.

"Well, when he does, say yes." Tricia ignored my confusion. "Y'all are real cute together. And the dance is next week; a Snow Princess can't come without a date, you know."

The late bell was going to ring any second now, and if I was late for home ec, Ms. McGrath would give me a zero for the day. She was one of those old teachers who you knew had to have a bed in her office because she never left school. She was a widow of at least ten years and, as far as anyone could tell, had no social life. For someone who spent so much time at school, she sure didn't seem to like it much. I knew I had to get going now or I wouldn't make it, so I decided I would make them happy.

"Fine, I'll do it," I said. "Can I go now?" I knew Tricia and Cherry's first class was clear across the school, but those two never got in trouble.

"So you'll say yes?" Cherry asked.

I looked away. David was an awful nice boy, but … well, that was it. That was all I felt about him. There was only one person I wanted to ask me to the dance, and it wasn't David. But then, why should I say no to a perfectly nice boy just because I wanted to go with someone else? I had already done that, three times this week. David and I got along just fine when he took me out.

"Sure," I told Cherry, but my voice was drowned out by the late bell. "I really have to go," I said.

"Okay! See you at lunch." Tricia waved, cheerful as could be now that she'd gotten what she wanted.

Muttering under my breath, I took off, already forming excuses in my mind about why I was late.

xxxx

The cafeteria was as crowded as ever, but I'd learned a long time ago how to navigate my way through without getting knocked over. It was a basic high school survival skill for students in a school that graduated seven hundred kids.

Cherry, Tricia, and the other cheerleaders were already there … everyone except Nancy. Laurie had saved me the last available chair, between her and Sharon. I sat down and deliberately began chattering with Sharon about her dress for the winter dance. I really didn't want to talk to Tricia any more than I had to.

Plus, David Richmond was sitting just a few seats away and I didn't want to talk to him either.

Todd Jeffries, the football player, had his arms around Cherry while she sat on his lap. He kissed her on the cheek and she giggled, both of them too preoccupied to notice anyone else. I looked at Cherry for a long time, trying to see the confused, conflicted girl Ponyboy had seen. But all I could see was a silly cheerleader, no different from the rest of us. She thought of herself as different, or at least she had at one point. When other people looked at me, did they see the same thing I saw when I looked at Cherry? Was I just like the rest of them?

I shook the thought away. Why was I thinking like this? I never had before. Back in October, I was happy pretending to listen to shallow conversations and thinking myself above everyone else. What had changed?

My book of crossword puzzles was still in my bag, I remembered. Maybe thinking about words was better than thinking about other things. At least for right now, when I was in this funny mood. Sharon's talk about dresses wasn't keeping me occupied; maybe cryptic clues would. I wasn't very hungry anyway.

Laurie clucked her disapproval when she saw what I was doing, but she left me alone.

"Hey!" Nancy had finally shown up. Strands of hair had come loose from her blond ponytail, and her cheeks were flushed like she'd been running to get here when she had. I watched out of the corner of my eye as Tricia pulled Cherry back into the only empty chair. My head started to hurt.

Nancy's wide blue eyes traveled around the table. It didn't take her long to realize she had nowhere to sit. Her smile faltered.

I should have wondered why everyone else was letting this happen. I really should have, but I didn't. Because I knew the answer. Because this wasn't the first time this had happened. Because things like this happened all the time.

"Sorry, Nan." Tricia pouted. "I guess there's no room left." She glared at Molly Hartley, our guest of the day. "Molly took the last seat."

Feeling sick to my stomach, I closed my book and stared, unseeing, at the cover. Molly didn't have the last seat. I did.

Nancy made a brave attempt at a smile, but I could see it quivering as everyone except me stared at her, unsympathetic. Her eyes darted around the table again, searching for something – I didn't know what. A pair of sympathetic eyes?

"You can share my seat if you want, Nancy," I said without thinking.

Laurie elbowed me, hard, in the ribs. Sharon kicked me under the table. Tricia raised one eyebrow, her eyes flashing dangerously. I still couldn't look Nancy in the eyes.

"Maybe not," I said, egged on by another painful kick in the shin. I was starting to feel glad I was wearing knee socks. "Um, I'm sure there's a chair someone's not using somewhere." I finally met her eyes and looked away as soon as I did.

Everyone at the table knew the chances of finding an empty chair in our cafeteria, which was so full it was practically bursting at the seams, were pretty slim. Nancy knew it, too. But she squared her shoulders bravely and set off in search of one. I knew the other girls were watching her leave – the boys, already tired of girl drama, had turned their attention back to their food – but I couldn't bring myself to look up.

Tricia smoothed her skirt and scooted her chair closer to the table like nothing had happened. But I knew from her glare that I wasn't off the hook. "So, Laurie. Will you be able to make it to practice today?"

Laurie glared at Tricia. "Well, it would've been nice if you'd told us sooner. It's my mother's birthday today and I don't have a present yet."

"Maybe you should have thought of that sooner."

"Maybe you should have told us sooner."

The two girls glared at each other for a few seconds. "You'd better figure something out," Tricia said finally. "If you don't show up today, you're off the squad."

"What?" Laurie choked out.

Tricia shrugged, unsympathetic. "With the way you've been performing, it shouldn't be hard to find an adequate replacement. I really don't think you can afford to miss any practices now." She smirked at Laurie, daring her to challenge her. Laurie scowled, but I knew she was trapped. I shook my head and opened my crossword book again. I was really getting tired of watching Tricia make power plays and shoot down anyone who challenged her. Weren't co-captains supposed to make decisions about who was cut _together_?

Laurie poked at her salad with her fork, not blinking, just staring down. Valerie, who was sitting beside her, was trying to say something to her, but Laurie wasn't even listening.

I looked over at Cherry. Cherry looked at her plate.

Nancy didn't return for the rest of the lunch period.

xxxx

Ponyboy looked worse than ever when I saw him in English. He definitely hadn't been getting any more sleep than he had last week. I tried to think of what could possibly be bothering him so much, but I was stuck. Sure, our teachers had been piling on the homework before Christmas, but it was nothing bad enough to lose that much sleep over.

"I see you're not sleeping any better," I said to Pony, who was already nodding off at his desk.

"I guess not," he said mildly, opening his eyes to look at me for the first time. I was suddenly very aware that the blouse I was wearing today was yellow. It was my favorite color even before he said he liked it on me, but now I couldn't even look at something yellow without thinking about him.

Even when he was tired, his eyes were probing, and I felt like he could see straight through me and know what I was thinking. Just in case, I avoided looking at him. "So you're not going to tell me what's wrong?"

I had expected a quip in response, something about my nosy questions, but Ponyboy clearly wasn't in the mood for banter.

"Sodapop is going away," he said to his desk. "In two weeks."

Words failed me for a second, just seeing the look on his face. "Vietnam?" I whispered. I thought back to the first time I went to his house, after I'd met Darry, and the memory of what he'd said hit me like a slap in the face. He'd been trying to sound so casual when he said it – Melanie and I had looked at each other, neither of us knowing what to say, and then Pony had changed the subject so quickly, like he wished he hadn't told us in the first place. Later, at home, I'd tried to imagine cheerful Sodapop being shipped off to Vietnam, fighting, killing people …

I couldn't do it.

"Yeah," Pony said quietly. "Steve got his letter last week." He paused and looked at me. "They're leaving, Christine." His expression broke my heart. "Both of them are leaving. Without them, we won't even be … we won't …" He laughed, and it sounded almost bitter. "It'll just be me and Darry and Two-Bit. What are we gonna do all by ourselves?"

The bell rang just then, stopping him from saying anything else. Ms. Belmont came inside and closed the door behind her. Pony turned and faced the front of the room, blinking a few times – as if nothing had happened.

Needless to say, I had trouble concentrating during our class discussion. If I wasn't spending the entire time staring at Ponyboy, I would have forgotten to kick him awake every time his head fell onto his chest.

xxxx

David caught me after cheerleading practice, even though I'd been trying to avoid him – I couldn't tell you why. Cherry and Tricia were right – he wanted to ask me to the dance. He was a smooth talker, but a sweet one, and could probably charm any girl he wanted.

I said yes – just like I'd promised Tricia – but I couldn't get rid of the feeling in my gut that I was doing something wrong. If anything, going out with someone else would help me forget about whatever stupid crush I had on Ponyboy. Clearly that would never work out anyway. If Melanie could move from boy to boy like it was nothing, so could I.

When David left me at the back door to catch a ride with Andy Johnson and some of his other buddies, I saw Ponyboy wander past me like he didn't even see me.

"Ponyboy," I called after him.

He stopped in his tracks and spun around, looking confused. I hurried down the steps to meet him.

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't see you."

His hair was wet, and he looked even more exhausted than he had during English. I guessed he had just come from track conditioning. David told me at lunch one day that the coach was working them like crazy even though their season didn't start until late February. I couldn't imagine how running around a track could take so much work, but then, all I did was jump around waving pom-poms. What did I know? Plus, I'd seen the track team run drills before. They were really fast.

"Maybe you should try going to bed tonight, huh?" I nudged him gently, but didn't press the matter. It wasn't any of my business what went on with him, but he told me anyway. I was glad he was telling me anything at all.

"Maybe," he repeated. He patted his pockets. I knew he was looking for cigarettes, but he didn't find any. "Did Dave Richmond ask you to the dance yet?"

Had everyone known but me? "How'd you know that?" I asked, amazed.

Pony shrugged. "He's on the track team. Everyone knows."

"So, are you going?" I really didn't feel comfortable discussing boys with Ponyboy. Plus, I really was wondering. I didn't feel a pressing need to know whether he had a date, of course – just a mild curiosity. That sounded better, at least.

"Yeah." Ponyboy scratched the back of his neck. "I asked Libby Burns the other day."

_"What_?_"_ I tripped off the curb we were walking along and almost fell. Pony grabbed my arm to steady me. I was probably blushing something fierce, but I composed myself and pressed on. "Libby Burns? Doug Burns' little sister?" I had heard plenty about Libby Burns, and none of it was good.

"What's wrong with her?" Pony asked.

Even I knew that Libby went all the way with Patrick Campbell last year – and we weren't even in the same junior high – but I wasn't about to say that out loud. I settled for a skeptical frown. "Why on earth would you ask a girl like that?"

"She's a nice girl," Pony insisted.

"Yeah, I heard that too," I said before I could stop myself.

Ponyboy raised his eyebrows at me, but otherwise ignored what I'd said. "Well, if you want the truth, she came up to me the other day all hacked off." He winced at the memory. "Apparently, she'd been hinting that she wanted to go all week. She was real angry at me, and the first thing out of my mouth was 'Do you want to go to the dance with me?'" He looked at me helplessly. "I didn't even mean to ask her."

If anyone else had told me the same story, I would have laughed in their face. But Ponyboy looked so helpless and bewildered that I couldn't help laughing at _him _instead of his story. Asking a girl to a dance by accident to make her happy? That was just like him.

"It's not funny," Ponyboy groaned.

"Of couse not," I sputtered. I always wound up sounding like a motorboat when I was trying not to laugh.

"Then how come you're laughin' at me?"

"I'm not laughing at you." The effect was ruined when I choked out another giggle despite myself.

A heavy pair of hands came down on my shoulders just then, and I shrieked in surprise.

"Two-Bit!" I cried when I saw who it was. I put my hand over my pounding heart. "Don't ever do that again."

Two-Bit and Ponyboy were both too busy laughing at me to reply.

"All right, that's enough," I said with a frown. "You'll be singing a different tune when you go and give me a heart attack."

"Aw, don't be cross, baby." Two-Bit took my hands and swung me around as I got dizzier and dizzier. "Nobody likes a sourpuss." With that, he twirled me into Ponyboy, who spun me down the sidewalk until I was gasping with laughter.

"Please," I pleaded, "I'm going to fall." I couldn't ever remember seeing Pony grin like that. He looked just exactly like his older brother.

By the time I was freed and had regained my balance, we had attracted quite a few stares from people passing by. That was when I realized we had already started down the sidewalk. I spun around. I was supposed to ask Cherry for a ride home, since we only lived two blocks apart. I was supposed to have been home an hour ago anyway; my mother didn't even know about our cheerleading practice. She was probably calling my friends all in a tizzy right now.

"What is it?" Ponyboy and Two-Bit turned around too. I glanced over at the entrance to the school parking lot just in time to see Cherry's little red Sting Ray zip down the street in the opposite direction we were going. I would never catch her now.

"I was supposed to get a ride home after practice," I said. My friends were all gone by now and we had missed the bus.

Two-Bit shrugged. "Betsy's with Steve, gettin' some work done, but if you wanta walk home with us, we can have Darry or someone drive ya home if you'd like," he offered.

I paused, weighing my options. I lived too far from school to walk home, and I knew that my mother would be furious if I called her from school and told her I'd forgotten to get a ride home. Besides, I could always call her and tell her I was doing homework or something.

"Well, all right," I agreed. Ponyboy grinned, and I decided it was worth the risk.

xxxx

By the time we got to Ponyboy's house – all of us flushed from the wind and Pony with chattering teeth because of his wet hair – it was past five. I could hear the television when we got to the front door. When we got inside, we found a boy I didn't recognize sitting at the coffee table, absently shuffling a deck of cards.

"Hey, Steve!" Two-Bit slammed screen door behind him.

Steve … This was the boy Pony had told me about, the car mechanic. Steve grunted something in response, glanced up at me, and performed a spectacular double take.

"This is Christine," Ponyboy said. "From my English class."

Steve nodded coolly in greeting, but raised his eyebrows at Pony. Whether he was impressed or just surprised, I couldn't tell.

He had curly, meticulously styled dark hair; a sharp, chiseled jawline; and smoldering blue eyes. If Melanie had been there to see him, she would have been in love on the spot, I was sure of it. He was wearing a DX shirt just like the one I remembered Sodapop wearing.

"Where's Darry?" Two-Bit tossed his jacket at the couch the same way Pony and Soda did and sprawled out on the carpet.

"He an' Sodapop are grocery shopping," Steve said. "Apparently, _you're _eatin' the Curtises out of house and home."

"Aw, I'm sure that's what he said," Two-Bit said with his crazy grin.

I tentatively placed my madras ski jacket on the back of the couch and sat down beside Ponyboy. I saw Steve glance from the jacket to me and then back at the TV. I hugged myself nervously.

We sat watching TV while Two-Bit told Steve and Pony about the blonde he'd talked to in his math class. I had a feeling that, because I was there, Two-Bit was holding back on what he really thought of her. As it was, Ponyboy and I were both turning red.

A car pulled into the driveway before too long, and I could tell from the sound of it that it wasn't Sodapop's "new" car. Sodapop and Darry came in a minute later, each of them juggling three paper sacks of groceries.

"Does anyone feel like helping me put food away?" Darry asked no one in particular. He glanced back as he headed for the kitchen, and he, too, raised his eyebrows. "Hi," he said. "It's Christine, right?"

"Yes." I wasn't sure whether or not to call him "sir." I had the first time I was over, and he'd just grinned at told me to call him Darry.

"Hi there, Christine!" Soda had already dumped his bags on the kitchen counter.

Two-Bit sat up, even though Darry and Sodapop had stepped over him like it was nothing. "Miss Christine here needs a ride home," he said.

"I'll drive you, darlin', don't worry." Sodapop flashed me a grin. Melanie would be so mad she had missed this.

xxxx

Soda kept up a steady stream of chatter the entire way to my house, but all I could do was answer him occasionally with a few words and ponder what Pony had said about him going to Vietnam. He seemed so happy. But he was about to go away to war! How could anyone be happy with something like that hanging over their heads?

I thought about the way I'd seen him talk to his brothers, to Two-Bit and Steve. Was he really that happy? Or was he just that determined not to see his friends sad?

How could he smile and keep up idle small talk like this?

But I didn't ask him. I wasn't even sure if he'd know the answer. I just sat, listened, and wondered.

Sodapop whistled when he pulled up to my house, but I didn't feel embarrassed for some reason. He didn't look annoyed, just impressed. "Nice place you got," he told me.

"Thanks," I said quietly. I immediately felt horrible that I had even considered asking him to drop me off at the street corner so my parents wouldn't see the Curtises' old Ford pickup. My whole body felt heavy with shame. "And, um, thanks for the ride."

"No problem." Sodapop winked.

I jumped out of the car and closed the passenger door behind me. Soda waved as he drove off.

Mom was waiting for me in the kitchen. I could tell from the look on her face that she'd seen me get home. I had called her from Pony's house, but she hadn't known where I was … well, until now, I guess.

"Christine, where on earth have you been?" Her mouth was pressed into a grim line. Kelly was hovering near the doorway. Daddy wasn't home yet.

"I … told you." I faltered. "I was doing homework. With … a friend."

"A _friend_? Chrissy, I saw that boy outside. He is not one of your friends. Or do I just not know anything about you anymore?"

I sighed. I really wasn't in the mood for this. "Mama, I don't …"

"What has happened to you, Christine? Why don't you talk to me anymore?" I knew she was just concerned, but I was really sick of her interfering.

"Well, maybe if you would just _listen _once in awhile! I might tell you things if I didn't think you would judge me!"

"That's enough, Christine. Go to your room. You're grounded."

"What?" I gasped.

"Since you clearly aren't able to listen when I tell you do to something, you will come straight home from school from now on. You may go to the dance, you may see Melanie, but I want to know where you are at all times." She paused. "If you're going to act like a child, I'm going to treat you like one."

I stormed out of the room and up the stairs. I had had enough.

"Call Melanie when you get upstairs," Mom called after me. "She called for the homework she missed."

I only stomped louder and slammed my bedroom door behind me.

* * *

**Well, I think this is a record - eight days. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed. As always, feedback is greatly appreciated.**


	10. School Gossip & Winter Dances

**A/N: **There was a bit in the second chapter about Angela getting married, because this fic was originally intended to take place after TWTTIN, but from reading the book again I figure the wedding happened around December, so it was moved into this chapter.

I know Christine's sort of sappy in this chapter, but she's a sixteen-year-old girl with a crush. What do you expect?

**Disclaimer: **I do not own _The Outsiders_ or _That Was Then, This Is Now _by S.E. Hinton. This fic is written purely for my own entertainment, and hopefully yours.

* * *

**Chapter Ten: School Gossip and Winter Dances**

Melanie was out of school for a week with a particularly nasty bout of strep. I visited her every day with her homework and a batch of daily gossip and magazines. (My mother made me call from her house every day.) We had plenty to talk about; all anyone could talk about at school was Angela Shepard, who had evidently just gotten married to Kenny Robinson, a member of her older brother's gang. Of course, people were also saying that she was pregnant, but no one had seen any proof of that yet.

"Really, it's only a matter of time," Melanie was saying on our way out of math class. "After everything that girl's been up to, you really ought to be surprised it didn't happen sooner."

"You mean everything you _heard _she's been up to," I corrected her.

Mel waved this off. "Details."

"No one really knows what's going on except her." I was trying to be fair, but really, was there much of a defense for a sixteen-year-old wife?

An unladylike snort escaped Melanie. "Yeah, and whatever guy got her in trouble."

"Melanie!" I whispered in embarrassment, checking to see if anyone had overheard her. There were some things you just didn't say out loud, ever. Besides, Melanie was only jealous of Angela, I knew. There weren't many girls at school prettier than Mel, but Angela was. She knew it and Melanie knew it (though Mel would never admit it).

"Excuse me, Miss Manners." Melanie rolled her eyes. "Anyway, I have more important things to talk about than Angela Shepard. You never did tell me, who's taking you to the dance? You do have a date, right?"

"Of couse I do." I should have known she'd bring up the dance again. It was all she could talk about, even when she was holed up in her room.

I knew, though, that Melanie would wind up coming to the Winter Dance, healthy, sick, or dying, so I was glad when she was back in school on Thursday. She had accepted Greg Anderson's invitation to go to the dance since he was captain of the basketball team and no one turned him down.

"Well? Who is it?" Melanie prompted me.

"Dave Richmond asked me." I still felt sort of funny saying it out loud, but I tried to look excited. Melanie sure did.

"That's fantastic!" She squeezed my arm. "Oh, I wish I'd been there! What did he say? What happened?"

Honestly, I could hardly remember. I just remembered promising Cherry and Tricia that I would say yes if he asked me. Boy, I guess everyone was more excited about my own date than I was, because as hard as I tried, I couldn't make myself feel excited for the dance tomorrow.

"Oh, I don't know. He just found me by my locker and asked me."

"What did he act like? Did he seem nervous?" Melanie was prepared to analyze every move David had made, because that was usually what we did whenever she went out with a boy. But this was different. Well, it felt different to me. David wasn't a boy I liked, he was just a nice boy on the track team. That was how I saw him; nothing more.

Unfortunately, not every boy in my life was that easy to categorize.

But I couldn't tell Melanie how I felt about Ponyboy. She just wouldn't understand. Her crushes were cute boys who showed an interest in her. This wasn't just some good-looking boy from class; I was honest-to-goodness, head-over-heels infatuated with Ponyboy Curtis.

"Uh, Mel, I really don't want to talk about this right now, okay?" I said.

"All right, I guess." She looked bewildered, so I decided to change the subject.

"You never showed me your dress for tonight, you know," I reminded her. I was pretty sure I would be able to distract her; talking about herself tended to do that for Melanie.

I was right. She immediately launched into an elaborate description of her new dress while I listened attentively and nodded in all the right places.

xxxx

"Could you turn that down, please?" I shouted over Melanie's blaring record player later that night. "I can't hear myself think."

"Aw, stop being such a bore," Valerie yelled back. She was shimmying into a navy blue chiffon dress and trying to keep her hair in place at the same time. "No one else is home." Melanie's parents had let us in on their way out the door for another one of their fundraisers at the country club. My mother was awful upset because she'd wanted a picture of me in my dress and I'd told her Mr. and Mrs. Walker would take some.

Mom used to let me walk over to Mel's house – she was only a few blocks away – but today she insisted on driving me herself, as if she expected me to walk across town to Ponyboy's place instead. Her excuse was that it was too cold to be out … in ski jackets, scarves, and mittens.

I knew I was grounded, but it still stung to know that my own mother didn't trust me to tell her the truth.

"Oh, be quiet, both of you," Melanie said uninterestedly, never once taking her eyes off her own reflection in her vanity. She was already partway made-up when we got to her house an hour and a half ago, and she was sure to be the last one done.

Valerie and Laurie had been acting even sillier than usual all night – squealing and laughing fit to give me a headache. They were singing and dancing now in front of where I sat on Melanie's bed. I had a feeling they were doing it just to bug me. Even Mel's Beatles record couldn't drown them out. I felt like my head might explode and wondered vaguely why the neighbors hadn't called to complain yet. I was used to being called a killjoy by then, though, so I finally went over and shut off the music.

"You're so boring, Chrissy," Laurie said halfheartedly as she twirled past me in her green dress.

"And you're going to break something," I said sensibly, grabbing onto her arm before she could knock into Melanie's nightstand.

Laurie smiled sheepishly. "Oops."

"Chris, zip my dress for me," Melanie said, standing up from her vanity chair. I rolled my eyes, because she knew I hated being called Chris but she did it anyway. It didn't used to bother me so much, but lately it had really started to bug me.

I zipped her dress and tied the sash for her while she looked in the mirror, patting down her hair. I had spent an hour and an armload of bobby pins ironing it flat and pinning it up in a stylish updo. She looked fantastic.

"Thanks," Melanie said as I adjusted one of her hair pins. She looked me over. "Why aren't you dressed?"

"I was too busy making sure you looked nice," I grumbled, but retrieved my dress from her bed all the same. It was pale pink, and Val said it set off my complexion, but I didn't like it much. It was a little shorter than I was used to.

"Well, don't let me hold you back next time," Mel said waspishly.

"Oh, right." I discarded my skirt and blouse and stepped into my dress. "I'm sure you'd thought about it before –" I stopped myself before I said something I would regret. Laurie, Val, and Mel were all staring at me. "Sorry," I muttered. "I've got a headache."

Melanie glanced back at her reflection in the mirror. "Well, don't take it out on us," she said, tucking a stray piece of hair back into one of the pins.

I bit my tongue – hard – to keep a retort from slipping out. "Will you help me?" I asked instead.

Val reached over to zip my dress for me.

I stared uncertainly into the mirror. I was pretty – I had been told enough times to know it was true – and I dressed well, but sometimes I felt frumpy next to Melanie. She always had the newest shoes and the most daring miniskirts, while I sort of trailed in her footsteps. Now that I was wearing a Melanie-approved dress, though, I felt sort of uncomfortable.

The doorbell chimed downstairs before I had more time to think about it.

"They're here!" Melanie shrieked, clutching at my arm, our tiff already forgotten. David and Greg were picking us all up in Greg's car. We were planning to meet Laurie's and Val's dates at Rusty's.

Laurie, Val, Melanie, and I stepped into our heels, grabbed our nice coats, and clomped our way down the Walkers' marble staircase. Melanie made it to the door first, gave her hair one last pat, and opened the door.

Greg and David stood in the doorway in neat sports coats, dress shirts, and slacks. Greg was grinning with all the confidence of a handsome basketball captain; David's smile was more polite and friendly.

"You look great, Mel," Greg said at once, his eyes taking in her shorter-than-usual dress appreciatively.

"You ladies all look lovely," David said politely, grinning at me. He had a white corsage in one hand, and when I extended my arm, he slid it onto my wrist with practiced ease. Valerie squealed and Laurie pinched my elbow from behind, whispering, "He's a doll!"

Mel's corsage clashed with her dress, but she didn't seem to mind; she and Greg were already down the front steps and halfway to the driveway. I could already hear Melanie chattering away.

xxxx

We piled into Greg's T-bird with the boys in the front and the girls piled in a heap in the back, just like we did for every dance. But for the first time, I felt sort of funny about it. I'd never really noticed before, but no matter what dance it was we were going to, things always turned out the same way. Us girls went with the same boys – or slight variations of the same boys – hung out with the same people, danced with the same people, got trashed together, and voted the same people Princesses and Queens over and over again.

It wasn't just boring. It was … well, I didn't know what it was, but I didn't like it, whatever it was. I felt like everyone was changing except us. Even while everything in society was completely turning around, we, the athletes and the cheerleaders, stayed in our own little bubble, went to our beer blasts and river-bottom parties, and invited new people along with us so other kids would see how hip we were.

I guess I was still looking at things funny to be noticing stuff like this – or maybe it was the rum I'd let Greg mix in with my Coke at dinner. But I couldn't help wondering if this was the way Cherry Valance felt now; the Cherry who'd talked to Ponyboy, not the Cherry we knew.

And then I got to wondering why the two sides of Cherry might as well have been two different people.

xxxx

We got to the dance a little bit late, so things were already swinging. Just like at all the formal dances (the Winter Ball, Spring Fling, and prom), Barbie Atkins, the student body president, was there to greet us with slips of paper and stubby pencils.

"Just pick one girl in each category," she said, rolling her eyes at us like she was trying to show us she understood how annoying it was being instructed on how to place a check in a box that had been drawn for us. Barbie was always trying to show us just _how much _she could relate to each of us, like she'd forgotten she couldn't be elected again.

David winked at me before placing his ballot in the box. My stomach didn't twist itself in knots like it should have.

"I voted for you, Chrissy," Barbie said, leaning toward me. Her tone was conspiratorial, as if she actually cared whether Mel, Laurie, or Val heard what she'd said.

"Thanks," I said, forcing a smile and glancing at the ballot for the first time.

There was my name, printed in tiny, cramped letters under the words "Junior Snow Princess." Before I could let myself think about it, I placed a check next to my name, Nancy McLaughlin's for the sophomores, Tricia's for the seniors, and Cherry's for Snow Queen. There, I thought. Now everyone would be happy.

"Come on," David said, and I realized that the others had already left. David was going to think I couldn't read or something. I put my ballot in the box, gave Barbie one last smile, and followed David onto the dance floor.

He was a pretty good dancer, and the band was all right, so we danced a lot. David seemed to like it.

When the first slow song came on, we took a break and headed for the punch bowl. Someone had spiked it, because someone always spiked it – sometimes more than one someone. But I took some anyway; I always had a glass or two.

David poured me half a cup full. I took a sip and made a face. Vodka.

Still, I drank it, leaning against the refreshments table, and we chatted with whoever came up to us. Melanie's words about everyone having a vote were ringing in my ears. I made sure I talked to as many people as possible.

I spotted Ponyboy before long, and of course that was when my heart jumped into my throat and my stomach sank down to my feet. It was like getting on a roller coaster. I scolded myself for being so pathetic. He was just wearing his church clothes, I assumed, but something about looking at him made my stomach turn over.

He was dancing with Libby Burns – really, she was draped all over him. It was disgusting, and I was instantly distracted. I don't think David noticed, because I kept on talking, but I really hardly even heard what I was saying. I was glancing over at Pony when I could and wondering. He had told me earlier in the week to "save him a dance," but then he'd pulled gently on one of my braids and asked me if I'd done the chemistry homework. Boys could be absolutely impossible.

"You want to dance, Chrissy?" David asked when a fast song came on again.

"You go ahead; I'm still recovering," I said, forcing a laugh. We had danced to at least five or six songs in a row. "I think I'll sit this one out."

David hesitated, but nodded. "All right." He glanced at a waving and giggling Barbie Atkins, then back at me, and went off to dance with her. At our dances, most boys ended up dancing with other girls at some point. It was one of those unwritten rules that your date was public property during the fast dances, but Barbie's date didn't look all too happy when the pair of them started dancing.

I glanced back at where Ponyboy was, but he was gone, so I poured myself another cup of punch and joined a few girls I knew from classes whose dates were nowhere to be found. I knew the punch was already starting to get to me – it doesn't take much to get me tipsy – so I slowed down. I didn't feel like getting completely pickled tonight, not while my mother acted like she couldn't trust me.

"Where's that date of yours, Chrissy?" Cindy O'Donnell asked with a giggle that tempted me to take her cup of punch away from her before she embarrassed herself. Her friends, all members of the _B _cheerleading squad, exchanged knowing glances.

"Otherwise engaged," I said airily. When they stared at me, I added, "I just figured I should be talking to people … y'know, not being exclusive."

"_Oh_." Cindy nodded like she knew exactly what I was talking about. "Well, you can tell him to call me any time." She drained her glass of punch and reached over to refill it.

I raised an eyebrow. David and I certainly weren't dating, but I had been talking about socializing, not trolling for boys.

"Good thing you're keeping your options open," Joanie Grossman said to a spot over my shoulder. I turned to see who had got her attention. Joanie had a notoriously short attention span.

"Ponyboy Curtis?" I blurted out with a nervous giggle. "What would make you think …?"

"We've all seen you with him," Janet Reid put in with a smirk.

My face was hot enough to start a fire. "I don't know what you're talking about." To prove my point, I found David from across the gym. He was talking to Barbie since their song had ended. He glanced over at me and shrugged.

"Well, everyone else does, that's for sure." I jumped when I heard a voice behind me. Cathy Carlson from my chemistry class was standing there. She looked real cute in her dress, even though I was sure it couldn't have cost more than half of what Cindy or Joanie had spent on theirs. Cathy's friends, I had noticed, were mostly girls with more money than her. She wasn't from a really good neighborhood or anything, but she was friendly and cute enough that it didn't matter. She could've been friends with anyone.

"Cathy!" Cindy yelled the way annoying girls did when they were tipsy. "Aren't you here with Bryon?"

Cathy shot me a look, but she had more patience for Cindy than I did, I could tell. I tried to subtly edge myself out of the conversation while politely nodding when Cathy explained that Bryon had opted to sit this dance out. She was here with friends.

I extracted myself from between Janet and Cindy and escaped with my cup of punch. Was I the only person who minded my personal life being discussed right in front of me? For such a big school, gossip sure spread fast at Will Rogers. I was surprised I hadn't been berated by Tricia yet for letting people gossip about me and a boy who wasn't David.

I let myself be distracted, though – like I always did – when I saw Ponyboy instead. This time, he was looking back at me, and he lifted his chin in greeting. He was standing with a couple of his friends and a flock of greaser girls, who hovered around him and Libby.

Libby spotted me then, too. Boy, if looks could kill … She sure was one nasty little thing. Pretty, but nasty. Pony couldn't honestly think she was a nice girl.

I didn't want to go picking any fights – especially not with Libby Burns, who had three older brothers to teach her how to fight – so I looked away until I realized that Ponyboy had actually decided to come over to me.

"You sure look nice," he said in that innocent way of his. My stomach chose that moment to tie itself in knots the way it should've done when David told me the same thing.

"If you want to keep it that way, I'd go back to Libby now," I said, trying to make a joke. "I don't want any blood on this dress."

Pony glanced back at Libby, who was looking ready to kill. "Aw, shoot. She wouldn't do nothin'."

"Are we looking at the same Libby?" I asked incredulously.

That got a laugh out of him. "She's sort of territorial, I guess. I'm starting to wonder if she came with me because she likes me or because she wants to make Anthony Meyers jealous." He shrugged helplessly. "I just can't say anything right to her."

Somehow I doubted that.

"Well, how about that dance?" Ponyboy asked.

"I don't think that's a good idea unless you want my blood on her hands," I said pointedly as the band struck up another fast song.

Pony and I both looked back at Libby, who was busy chatting up a tall, dark-haired boy I didn't recognize. Either that was Anthony Meyers or she was testing out one of Melanie's preferred boy-catching techniques – jealousy. But Ponyboy was grinning at me, and Lord, that _smile _… I realized I didn't care about Libby Burns and I forgot about finding David.

The song was an old one, with a dance that came with it that was easy enough. All you really had to do was twist around, so there was no way you could look stupid – well, any stupider than anyone else did.

Dancing with Ponyboy was nice, even though the band was playing loud enough that we had to shout at each other in order to be heard. I advised Pony to act mad that Libby was dancing with someone else – girls liked that sort of thing.

Pony was a good dancer, and I couldn't help wondering what it would be like to dance closer to him, with him close enough to touch. My stomach backflipped.

At the end of the song, Pony found Libby and took her aside from where she was dancing with Tall, Dark, and Scary-Looking. I felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach. Why was I such an idiot? What sort of girl gives girl advice to a boy she likes, anyway?

"Hey! There you are." It was David. "I was looking for you. Where've you been?"

"Uh, you know," I said lamely. "Around." The band had stopped playing, and the gym seemed oddly quiet as everyone nudged their friends and began whispering. Soon the only sound I could hear was the buzz of gossiping girls.

He grinned, revealing perfect white teeth. "Well, I'm glad I found you. I think they're about to announce the Winter Court. Look."

Barbie Atkins was making her way up onstage, her green silk dress shiny under the bright spotlights. She took the microphone the singer handed to her.

"Hey, everyone. It's time" – she paused to giggle modestly when a few boisterous senior boys broke into applause, most likely because of the rather low-cut dress she was wearing – "to announce this year's Winter Court. As always, we nominate girls for the Winter Court during the weeks leading up to the dance so each girl has time to find the right dress and the right date." She giggled again. "The girl with the most votes from each class is crowned a Snow Princess, and the senior with the most votes becomes the Snow Queen."

Melanie, Laurie, and Val had squeezed themselves in beside me while Barbie was talking.

"So this year's senior Snow Princess is … Tricia Hogan!"

"Boy, what a surprise," Laurie whispered to me as Tricia jumped up onto the stage, wearing a huge smile. Barbie handed her a silver plastic crown and a long-stemmed rose.

I was hardly paying attention, though, because I knew the juniors would be next. Melanie clutched my hand. I decided that whoever had nominated me could go straight to hell. If I lost, it would be humiliating; I'd have to stand there and smile like a good sport while –

"… Come on up here, Chrissy!"

_What?_

Melanie squealed. Val squealed. Laurie squealed. David kissed me on the cheek. But I stood frozen in place – unable to move. Finally, Mel gave me a shove and I stumbled forward, dazed.

The trip up to the stage was much longer than it looked. It was strange having everyone's eyes on me. It was like they were waiting for me to trip and fall and make a fool of myself. But I didn't. Somehow, I made it up onto the stage with the hot spotlight following my every move. People were clapping, and everyone was staring at me, and it was actually pretty embarrassing …

I tried to hide my face, an automatic reaction from staring into a spotlight, but Tricia pulled my hands down and hugged me. Barbie handed me my tiara and my flower, and I stood next to Tricia, staring down at the people below.

A sophomore I didn't recognize, a Tricia look-alike, was crowned sophomore Snow Princess, and I didn't have the heart to look for Nancy in the crowd of girls as I hugged this sophomore I didn't even know, whispered a congratulations, and smiled encouragingly (the poor thing looked like a deer in headlights).

"And now, your Snow Queen for this year's Winter Ball … Cherry Valance!"

The spotlight moved, searching for Cherry, but I spotted her red hair before it did. She was surrounded by a cluster of senior cheerleaders and a few other girls. They all began squealing just like Mel, Laur, and Val had for me, and I watched pretty little Angela Shepard, standing with her date, roll her eyes disgustedly as Cherry modestly accepted her gold crown and bouquet of flowers.

I wondered if I had seemed that fake, and then immediately felt bad. Cherry wasn't trying to be fake … it just came off that way.

Cherry gave me a hug. She smelled like lavender.

When we were finally allowed off the stage, I got down as quickly as I could without putting myself in any immediate danger of high heel-related injuries. Melanie and the others were waiting for me near the bottom of the makeshift stage. Cherry squeezed my arm and took off with Tricia, Sharon, and her date while I scanned the crowd. I spotted a few of Libby's girl friends, but Ponyboy was nowhere in sight.

"Come on, Chrissy." Laurie linked her arm through mine. "Let's find out about an after-party. We can celebrate." The dance was almost over anyway, and there were always a few parties going on after a school dance.

I let her pull me off without telling her my mother would never let me go to a party while I was supposed to be grounded. How much more trouble could I possibly get into?


	11. More Trouble & Bad Timing

**A/N: **This chapter is dedicated to Mel (whatcoloristhesky) 'cause she's awesome and never runs out of ideas.

The excerpt from _Romeo and Juliet _was taken from Act II, Scene iv, in case anyone cares.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own anything, but then, neither does Shakespeare.

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**Chapter Eleven: More Trouble and Bad Timing**

Apparently, I could get into more trouble. When I got home from the after-party at two in the morning toting a tipsy Valerie, my mother grounded me for two more weeks … with no more visits to Melanie. When I protested that my house arrest now extended into Christmas break, Mom told me I should have thought of that before I ran off to a beer blast. How she even knew what a beer blast was was beyond me.

I spent the remainder of the weekend – aside from our trip to church – sulking around my house, and I could never remember being happier to go back to school on Monday. I was even banned from the phone. I'd never really been grounded before, but I decided I didn't like it one bit.

"Your mother is so old-fashioned," Melanie said when she met me in front of school on Monday. Mom actually drove me there herself.

"You think I don't know that?" I replied irritably. "This was the worst weekend of my life."

Mel clucked in sympathy. "At least you got your hot date in before you got grounded," she said with a wink.

"Aw, hush," I said, giving her a halfhearted shove. I hadn't seen or spoken to David since he dropped me off after the party on Friday night. He called over the weekend, but I wasn't allowed to talk to him.

A small, immature, teenybopper-with-a-crush part of me didn't want to talk to him anyway.

All right, so maybe that not-so-small part of me wished Ponyboy would call instead.

We hurried up the front steps because we were running late. My mother seemed to run on her own internal clock; unfortunately, it was about half an hour behind everyone else's actual clocks. She tended to be late for everything as a result, and I was used to her making me late.

"When are your parents going to buy you a car?" Melanie asked.

I sighed. This was still a topic of debate at our dinner table. Mom was on my side for the most part, but Daddy was a different matter altogether. Sometimes I was sure he still thought I was ten years old instead of sixteen. So my driver's license was only a few months old … it wasn't my fault I'd started kindergarten early. My friends all had their own cars, or were at least allowed to drive their parents'.

"I don't know," I said, wishing Mel would stop reminding me of all the things I wasn't allowed to do. "You know how my dad can be. If you asked him, he'd say Kelly and I are practically the same age."

Melanie shook her head. "Wasn't he ever a teenager?"

I was starting to have my doubts myself.

"My mom's not going to be sticking up for me now, anyway," I told Melanie. "She's still mad about the dance and Ponyboy."

The instant the words left my mouth, I knew it was the wrong thing to say. Mel got that look like she was preparing to give me a lecture. When were my friends going to give it a rest? I didn't sign up for my personal life to become everyone's business; it came with the territory of being a cheerleader.

She followed me to my locker, which meant this was serious business. "Christine, I know this might not be the best time to talk about this …"

"No," I broke in, growing increasingly irritated. "It's really not."

"I'm just trying to look after you."

"Thank you," I said stiffly, "but I can look after myself." How could she even suggest that _I _was the one who needed looking after?

Melanie lifted her hands in surrender. "All right, Christine, fine. But you can't avoid it forever."

I sighed. "Melanie, I have to get to homeroom, all right?" I was tired of her pushing her nose into my business. What was she so worried about anyway? Maybe she thought I'd make her look bad or something. She hadn't seemed so concerned when _she _was after Pony.

"Okay," Mel said somewhat reluctantly. She made a big show of pulling a copy of some political magazine or another out of her book bag.

I shook my head as she wandered off. At least her sudden interest in greasers had (for the most part) put a stop to her counterculture rants … _show, don't tell_ and all that, I supposed.

"I'll see you in math?" I called after her, because I always did.

She turned around. "Yeah," she replied, "but I've got English tutoring at lunch. Come find us if you want."

Of course.

xxxx

Ponyboy made himself scarce all morning. I had grown used to seeing him at least a few times in the halls before lunch, and he usually came by my locker between second and third periods just to say hi. But I didn't see him at all today, and the pathetic, infatuated part of me (it seemed to be growing by the minute) wanted to see him again … really, really wanted to see him again.

Oh, Lord, I _was _pathetic.

I usually went with Mel to the library when she was meeting Pony anyway. It wasn't like she minded. So after math class, I didn't feel funny about telling her I'd come with her. Not one bit.

We took longer than usual getting there, but that was only because I, in a stunning display of maturity, decided to wait until David – who always passed by my locker on the way to lunch – was surely gone before I risked returning to put my books away. Melanie rolled her eyes but played along and, for once, didn't ask any questions. She was probably just tired of me arguing with her every time she did.

"So, what are y'all doing in English?" I asked Mel. Her teacher wasn't exactly known for her fairness and sensibility. In fact, Melanie claimed she was out to get her. I told Mel she was probably just bitter, which seemed to mollify her.

"We started a new book," Melanie groaned. "At least we're done with Shakespeare, but oh, Christine, I hate that class."

A new book? Boy, just in time for winter break. Maybe their teacher was crazy.

She spent the rest of our walk to the library moaning about _Great Expectations_, which the _A _classes had read last year. I still remembered the composition Mr. Syme had made us write about Pip and Estella. It was the lowest grade I got all year.

Pony wasn't there when we got to the library – although he was usually on time, even if he was late for pretty much everything else – so we sat down to wait. Melanie picked that moment to let me know she hadn't done her reading for today. If she'd told me that before, I wouldn't have come. She tended to get really worked up over English homework.

I decided we might as well get started right then, because it was an awful long book and it sounded like Mel's teacher wanted them to have half of it done by next week when school let out so they could finish by the end of Jaunary. That was one delusional teacher.

We had gotten through two or three pages before a windblown Ponyboy finally arrived. I was glad, because he was much better at explaining things than I was.

"Sorry I'm late," he said. He was out of breath. When he saw me, his eyebrows disappeared completely into his bangs. I couldn't imagine why.

Melanie looked a bit relieved. Like I said, he put things into words a lot better than I did.

"How was your weekend, Ponyboy?" I asked, because Melanie never thought of things like that.

He was looking at me sort of funny. "All right, I guess," he said. "Congratulations on winning that Winter Princess thing."

"Snow Princess," I said automatically. Pony never could get that right. I wanted to ask him how he knew I'd won, because from what I'd seen he wasn't even there. I didn't, though.

He grinned lopsidedly and I couldn't help but smile back. "What's the difference?"

"_What's the difference?_" I said indignantly. "There's a huge difference. Tell me, who on earth would want something like 'Winter Princess' written across their tiara?"

"Well, excuse me," he said in falsetto.

"Maybe I won't." I lifted an eyebrow.

He lifted both of his. "Well, that's fine."

"Fine."

"Good."

"Good."

Mel cleared her throat loudly. "Sorry to interrupt, but I've got homework due after lunch."

"Right," Pony said absently, reaching for her book. For the first time, it hit me that he looked worse than ever. He rubbed his temple like he had a headache. "Why don't you start reading out loud, Melanie?"

Melanie, who had flat-out refused when I'd asked her to do the same thing, obediently opened to where we'd left off. She squinted down at the small print and began to read haltingly. She really needed reading glasses – she was as far-sighted as they came – but she was too vain to get them, even though she'd probably look fantastic in anything she wore.

She quickly grew bored with her reading, and it took Pony and me both to coax her into finishing the chapter. Her teacher was just wild about reading quizzes, and I knew she couldn't afford another bad grade.

"Are we done now?" Mel asked when they'd finished. Lunch was almost over, because Ponyboy ended up explaining everything she read in simpler terms. She was having real trouble understanding.

I knew she hated needing a tutor, but she needed Pony. Melanie was actually one of the smartest people I knew when it came down to it, but there was something about old books and long words that just didn't make sense to her. I could sense her frustration every time Ponyboy had to explain something to her, and I felt bad, even though I was sure that part of what really made her mad was that maybe, just maybe, Pony was just smarter than she was.

"Are you sure that's all you need for today?" Ponyboy asked carefully.

"Yeah, I'm sure." Melanie was impatient. For some reason, it really bugged me how much she clearly hated having to ask for help, even though she'd always been that way.

"All right. Do you need more help tomorrow?"

Mel lifted her chin. "I'm sure I can manage," she said. I wondered what her problem was. She wasn't usually this defensive.

Pony and I exchanged glances. I shrugged.

"Maybe I'll see you later, then," he said, but I could tell he was a little stung. Personally, I didn't think she had any reason to be rude. He was giving up his lunches to tutor her on books he'd already read, and he hadn't once asked for any money.

"Are you coming, Christine?" Melanie asked, gathering her books.

I looked down at my hands. "Not right now. I'll see you after school, all right?" I knew she wouldn't be happy, but I really didn't feel like I should follow her around like I usually did. Besides, I had something I wanted to ask Ponyboy.

"Fine," Mel said shortly. She stuffed her copy of _Great Expectations _into her bag and took off.

As soon as she was gone, Ponyboy ran a hand through his hair and stood up. I grabbed his arm before he could leave.

"Sodapop left, didn't he?" I asked. I didn't know if there was a right way to phrase the question, but I _did _know that it had been two weeks since he'd last mentioned his brother. In all the fuss about the dance, I'd completely forgotten, and I wanted to kick myself.

Pony didn't answer, but his jaw clenched and his grip on my chair tightened until his knuckles turned white.

I slid my hand down his wrist and wrapped my fingers carefully around his. It was the only thing I could think of that might reassure him a little bit. Surely, it had to be better than apologizing for something neither of us could control.

To my surprise, Ponyboy smiled a little bit, and he didn't let go of my hand until we reached my locker.

xxxx

He seemed better in English class. In fact, he seemed so much better I had to wonder whether he was really feeling better at all. We were still going with _Romeo and Juliet_; I don't think Ms. Belmont figured it would take so long to get the boys to stop snickering when she was forced to translate the dirty jokes into modern English for us. I could see now why we'd only skimmed through the play back in junior high.

Ponyboy had managed to figure out most of the jokes on his own, because his cheeks turned pink every time it was his turn to read out loud.

When a very flustered Ms. Belmont finally threw up her hands in exasperation and told us to just finish the rest of the play tonight – after all, we should have finished last week – I watched Pony laugh with some of his track friends and wondered if he could possibly be feeling better already.

I thought back to when I'd seen him with Sodapop, and the way he'd looked at him, and I knew the answer was no.

It was strange to think about, Soda Curtis fighting in a war. I couldn't even imagine him cutting off his hair, let alone carrying a gun. A switchblade was one thing, but a _gun _…

And now Pony might never see his brother again.

I stole another glance to my right. Our desks had been smashed together in a lopsided circle, so it didn't take much to see what was going on around you. Ponyboy and his friends were chattering on about something or other while he played with my hair, wrapping one of my curls around his finger. He wasn't off in his own world for once. In fact, I couldn't remember seeing him this talkative.

He grinned when he caught my eye, but looked away quickly.

"Groovy." Bobby Sellars was perusing his copy of the play as if it held the meaning of life. "_The bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon_." He and his friends cackled. I sighed. Poor Ms. Belmont was right to have given up. Our class was hopelessly immature.

I almost felt bad – she loved the play so much, and she was so excited to teach it to us. But it had never made sense to me. A thirteen-year-old girl falling in love, getting married, and killing herself in five days because of a guy she just met? That seemed pretty unrealistic, even for Shakespeare's time. There wasn't any love there. Infatuation, maybe, or lust, but not love.

When I'd said that to Ponyboy, he'd called me cynical. He said I didn't know how they might have felt.

I called him hopeless, but a part of me was enamored.

What was it about this boy that made me so unsure of everything I said and did? Was this how Juliet felt when she thought she was in love? Like it wasn't worth seeing anyone else if she couldn't see Romeo?

Maybe I wasn't as practical as I'd thought.

I don't know who was more relieved when the bell rang – me or Ms. Belmont. Something about sitting this close to Pony made it hard to think straight. Boy, I had it bad.

Ponyboy, who had recently taken to walking with me to my locker, said goodbye at the door today. I didn't know whether I was relieved or disappointed. But I _was _curious to know what had inspired his sudden change in mood.

Halfway down the hall, I almost collided with Tricia, who was alone for once.

"Sorry," I said hastily, and tried to get away before she said anything else.

"Not so fast," she said. I froze. "I saw you talking to that kid. Chrissy, haven't you heard this enough? He's not –"

"So why is it all right for Melanie, but not for me?" The words slipped out before I could stop them.

"What?" Tricia snapped. When I didn't answer, she sighed. "Chrissy, talking to a – to one of them is one thing. Prancing around after school with him every day is something else." She squeezed my arm like she actually cared. "Don't ruin your chances with Dave."

Had it always been this hard to make my own decisions? Maybe I'd never really cared before, I thought, staring blankly after Tricia as her golden head disappeared into a crowd of sophomores. Why hadn't I cared? I used to take it for granted that my mother and my friends would just make my decisions for me. It was a part of high school, right? Nobody cared what I wanted. I was a cheerleader, a crowd-pleaser, someone people kept around because they liked looking at me. In other words, I was just like everyone else on the squad.

And maybe they were right. Maybe I really didn't know what I wanted. But shouldn't I at least be allowed to try and find out?

xxxx

The rest of the week was even worse than Monday had been; every time I saw Ponyboy or Two-Bit, someone else had seen me first. I still hadn't figured out whether I was unlucky or everyone else had a remarkably bad sense of timing, but I was thinking it was both.

David managed to intercept me on my way to English on Thursday.

"Hey." He motioned to the books I was carrying. "Do you need help with those?"

I wanted to tell him no, I didn't need help, because all anyone had been trying to do lately was _help _me. But I didn't, because Cherry and Tricia thought we looked cute together.

"Sure. Thanks," I managed, and handed him my books.

"Crossword puzzles?" David examined the battered book perched on top of a stack of notebooks. He flipped it open, and I almost snatched it back from him. "In pen?" Why did it seem all right when Ponyboy said it, but not when David did?

Just when I was about to snap and grab the book back from him – to hell with Tricia – he closed it again and grinned. "This is what you're always doing at lunch, huh?"

I blushed. I hadn't thought anyone had noticed. It was sort of nice to know someone was paying attention to me even when I wasn't saying anything.

David wasn't deterred when I didn't reply. "So, where are we going?"

"English," I said.

"English?" He got that little smirk most boys did when they were thinking about Ms. Belmont.

He made small talk the rest of the way to my classroom. I was glad, because I was pretty rotten at it. But he asked polite questions about my friends and cheerleading, so I felt obligated to ask him about track. The season was beginning in February, I was pretty sure, but this topic set off a string of complaints about their conditioning; it seemed he wasn't enjoying it any more than Ponyboy was.

"Chrissy," David said when we reached the door of my classroom.

I looked at him, figuring I was finally going to find out why he had really offered to walk me to class.

"Can I take you out again?" he asked.

It was a simple question, but I felt like I'd never been asked anything harder before. "Um …" I pursed my lips nervously and stole a glance into the classroom. Ponyboy was sitting at his desk, studiously avoiding looking at me.

If I said no, Tricia and Cherry would be upset. But I didn't want to say yes.

"I'll need to think about it." I couldn't look at David. I had no idea what to do, but I knew I couldn't go out with him again.

"Okay," David said, and left it at that. He really was a nice boy.

He said goodbye and hurried off to class right as the warning bell rang. I was pretty sure his next class was a floor above us, too, and I felt guilty. I had made him late to class and hadn't even agreed to go out with him again. The poor boy probably thought I got a kick out of giving him mixed signals.

"Hi," I said, sliding into my seat next to Pony.

"Hi," he replied distractedly, hardly glancing at me. I watched, bewildered, as he focused his attention on Ms. Belmont as if his life depended on it.

I just couldn't do anything right any more, could I?

Ponyboy seemed even more preoccupied than usual for the rest of the period, but he grinned at me every time I said something – it was terribly distracting – so I couldn't tell whether there was actually something wrong.

He hadn't said a word about Sodapop since Monday in the library, and I didn't want to press him to talk about it, but I was worried. Ponyboy worshiped the ground his brother walked on – that much I could gather from my few interactions with Sodapop. Maybe he just wasn't ready to talk about it.

xxxx

On Friday, Laurie told me that Valerie told her that Melanie told her that she couldn't give me a ride home. She hadn't been at lunch and had hardly spoken to me all week; I suspected she was still sore about my display of disloyalty in the library.

I was just about to swallow my pride and find David and ask him for a ride home – I wasn't in the mood to deal with Tricia, and I was pretty sure the rest of the squad was piling into Cherry's car – when I spotted Two-Bit in the parking lot.

The last time I'd tried to talk to him about Pony, he'd told me I was cute and refused to answer my questions. But I had no other choice. For all I knew, David had track conditioning, and besides, I had a question for him that I could never ask Ponyboy.

"Two-Bit!" I called, but he didn't hear me. He was talking to Anthony Meyers, that boy Pony had told me Libby liked. Anthony didn't look too happy; in fact, he looked as if he'd like nothing better than to knock Two-Bit's teeth down his throat.

He wasn't dumb, though; Two-Bit was taller, stronger, and older than him.

A large part of me was tempted to turn tail and run, but I couldn't bring myself to leave. Anthony Meyers was not my priority.

I hurried toward Two-Bit before I lost my nerve, but he and Anthony still didn't notice me as I approached.

"Two-Bit, I mean it," Anthony was saying, his tone low and dangerous. "You'd better quit playin' games and tell me what I want to know."

"I'm sorry, I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about." I could tell just from Two-Bit's tone that he was having a ball taunting Meyers with whatever information he had.

I stopped a short distance away and listened to Anthony cuss Two-Bit out.

"Goddamnit, Mathews!" He was yelling by now, and I didn't have to strain to hear. "You'd better tell me what the fuck you know about Libby an' Curtis before I kill you _and _that little shit!"

Two-Bit stayed calm; in fact, when he spoke next, it almost sounded like he was laughing. Meyers' fists clenched. "What is it you wanna know 'bout Libby and the kid?" Something twisted unpleasantly in my stomach. "Would ya be happy if'n I told you Pony spent Friday evenin' with his tongue down her throat?"

_Oh my God._

So it was true, I thought with a strange sense of nonchalance. That changes things a little.

I walked off without saying anything to Two-Bit. I'd just found out what I'd wanted to know anyway. Apparently school gossip was accurate every once in a while.

It was stupid to feel upset about something like this. We were friends, and that was it. He didn't owe me any explanations, and I didn't have any right to be mad. Unfortunately, telling myself that over and over again didn't make me any less upset.

David and a few of his friends had just stepped outside when I looked up next. He smiled and waved and I felt horrible. He was still friendly after I turned him down for a date, went with him to the school dance, and then refused to give him an answer when he asked me out again. Why should he have to put up with Ponyboy Curtis' whims? Why should I?

Maybe I'd go over and give him his answer right now.


	12. Telephone Calls & Nights on the Ribbon

**A/N: **Thanks to everyone who reviewed - the feedback was greatly appreciated. (:

I'm not sure whether I made it clear in the chapter, but Ponyboy started working at the bowling alley mentioned later on.

**Disclaimer: **Hinton owns.

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**Chapter Twelve: Telephone Calls and Nights on the Ribbon**

"I'm sorry, Melanie, Chrissy is still grounded," I heard my mother say on my way downstairs. I hurried the rest of the way down. I was craving any contact with anyone outside my house; three weeks of being grounded was torture.

It had become a routine by now: One of my friends would call the house—Mom expressly forbade me from even letting the phone ring in my room—and I would come down to see who was calling, only to find her hanging up the phone and saying something about how I should have told my friends that being grounded wasn't just an excuse to call the house instead.

"Mama," I whispered loudly before she could hang up the phone.

Mom glanced at me and sighed. "Just a moment, Melanie." She rested the receiver on her shoulder and turned to face me. "What is it, Chrissy?"

"Can I talk to her?" I pleaded. Mom sighed. "Please! You haven't let me talk to anyone since Friday when school let out. Do you have any idea what I'm missing out on because of this?"

"Chrissy, you chose to disobey me."

I sighed. "_Please_, Mama." I couldn't believe I was actually begging to talk to Melanie, who had given me the cold shoulder for most of last week. But I was desperate to talk to someone, and I missed her. I'd never realized just how accustomed I'd grown to seeing Mel at least six days a week and talking to her every night on the phone without fail.

"All right," Mom said with a disapproving _tsk_. "You have five minutes."

"Thank you!" I snatched the phone away before she could start up with her polite _Goodbye_s and _It was nice of you to call_s. "Mel?" I asked, darting out of the kitchen and into the living room, stretching the cord as far as it would go.

"Merry Christmas!" Melanie squealed as if nothing had happened last week.

I couldn't help laughing. "It's Christmas Eve."

"I know," she said, "but I probably won't talk to you tomorrow."

Kelly was sitting on the floor with a bowl of cereal, completely riveted to _Miracle on 34th_ _Street_, so I tried to talk quietly, because she got real upset when she was interrupted while she was watching television. "Don't remind me," I said.

"Dave was asking about you the other day," Mel continued.

"I'm grounded until Friday," I reminded her with a sigh. "I told him that."

Melanie sighed too. "Your mother is being so unreasonable," she said.

I rolled onto the couch and stared glumly at my pants-clad legs. No going out meant I could wear whatever I wanted, and I chose to lounge around the house in pants because I knew my mother didn't like them. "Don't you think I know that, Mel?" I asked Melanie. "I've tried to reason with her, but … well, she won't listen to me."

"I guess you had to get your stubbornness from somewhere," Mel said with a giggle.

"Excuse me!" I sat up, indignant. "I am not stubborn."

She laughed again. "Sure you aren't, Chris." She changed the subject, probably so I couldn't argue with her any more. "So did you hear about what happened with Tricia and James Carson last night?"

"What do you think?" I said glumly. "I don't hear about anything when I'm not allowed to talk on the phone."

"Well, anyway, they broke up," Melanie said.

I was surprised. "They were going steady?" Sometimes it seemed like Tricia had a new steady every week, but I was sure I would have known if the two of them were going together.

"Not really, I guess," Mel agreed, "but they went out twice last week, and they went to the dance together, you know. I think they went out before that, too. She didn't have a ring or anything, but she was sure upset when she caught him with Barbie."

"Atkins?" It wasn't exactly a surprise, but boy, I sure wouldn't want to mess with Tricia's guy, even if I were as dumb as Barbie was.

"Yeah! I was sure Tricia was going to slap her," Melanie said delightedly. She just loved delivering gossip.

"Gosh, I'm glad I wasn't there," I said, imagining just how mad Tricia must have been.

Kelly turned around from the TV to give me an irritated "Shhh!" I guess I'd been getting louder.

"Sorry," I whispered.

"And you must have heard about Ponyboy and Libby Burns, right?" Melanie asked, as off-handed as could be. If I hadn't been expecting her to bring it up somehow anyway, I would have been suspicious just from her casual tone of voice.

"Yeah, I heard," I told her.

Melanie paused, clearly waiting for me to say something else. I didn't, and she finally got impatient. "And?"

"And what?" I asked, keeping an eye on the kitchen door in case my mother happened to walk in. The last thing I needed was for her to hear me talking about Ponyboy and giving me another lecture about "delinquents."

"Come _on_, Christine," Melanie said impatiently. "You weren't exactly being real secretive-like."

I was turning red, I knew it. "Melanie, we w—we're friends. That's all there's ever been." It was the truth.

"_Christine_ …" She was really losing patience now.

"Sorry, Mel, that's it," I told her. "I liked him, all right? I'll admit it. But you did, too. He's good-looking and he wears a leather jacket and we're sheltered West Side girls and we were curious. You lost interest before I did, and that's the end of it, so you can stop bugging me about it, all right? You're no better than I am."

There was a long pause. Kelly had turned around from the TV again, but she hadn't shushed me; she was hanging on my every word. Glory, I wished I was having this conversation in my bedroom.

"Chrissy?" my mother called from the kitchen. "Say goodbye."

"Just a minute, Mom." I was waiting for Melanie to say something, because it was about time she knew the score. Well, most of it, anyway. She didn't have to know that I might have been more upset than I was letting on. It wasn't as if she'd care.

I had half-expected her to yell at me, but she just said, "So you lost interest, then?"

"Christine!"

"In a minute, Mother!" I was starting to get impatient. I put the receiver back to my ear. "Yes, Melanie, I lost interest, all right?" I ignored the funny sinking feeling in my stomach when those words came out. "Look, I have to go now, okay?"

"Okay, if you're sure." She sounded a lot happier now. I knew it wasn't because I was supposedly feeling better.

"Yeah, I'm sure," I said hastily.

"Christine Elizabeth Collins, if you're not here in ten seconds, you're grounded for another two weeks!"

I sighed. "I'll see you on Friday, okay?"

"Okay. 'Bye."

I hurried back into the kitchen and hung up the phone before my mother took drastic measures. "There. I'm through, all right?"

Mom looked at me suspiciously, and I couldn't help wondering if maybe she'd heard part of my conversation. But she just said, "You can talk to her again on Friday, but I don't want you taking any more phone calls."

"Fine," I said vaguely, already on my way upstairs. Maybe I'd find a book to read or something; there was never anything on TV right before Christmas except for Christmas specials.

As I picked up my book, though, and heard my dad's car in the driveway, I wondered just how long all the lies that had been brimming under the surface—between Melanie and me and between my parents—could stay there before everything bubbled over.

A minute later, I heard my parents having "discussion" in the kitchen about Dad working on Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas to me.

xxxx

Cherry came by to pick me up on Friday evening around seven.

As soon as I saw her car in the driveway, I ran out of the house like the devil was after me. I'd been ready to go out all day, and nothing could have kept me inside at this point.

"Hey!" I jumped into the passenger seat of Cherry's Sting Ray.

"We missed you, Chrissy," Cherry said, reaching over to squeeze my arm. She gave me that smile she had where you couldn't help but feel special, just to be friends with her. It was one of the reasons everyone wanted to be friends with her, I guess. You couldn't help feeling special when someone like Cherry Valance wanted you as a friend.

I grinned back at her. "Yeah, I'm sure Mel and the others missed me nagging them about having too much fun and stuff."

Cherry laughed. "It got lonely being the only one with some common sense, I'll tell you that."

"I'm sure," I said, thinking of Laurie, Val, and Sharon. "So where are we going tonight?" I'd been so excited at the prospect of going out that I hadn't thought to ask where we'd be going.

"The Ribbon," Cherry said. "Maybe Jay's or Rusty's."

_Just like every other time we go out._

"Sounds like fun," I replied, forcing myself to smile. "So what else have I missed out on?"

"You probably heard about Tricia, right?" Cherry said with a wry grin. When I rolled my eyes, she continued. "Yeah, I figured that's the first thing Mel would have told you. Tricia's already at work making Barbie's life miserable."

Any other time, I would have laughed with her, even though it wasn't funny, because we were the same that way. But knowing what Pony knew about her and seeing her act the way I did made the terribly hypocritical part of me want to shake some sense into her and the more honest part of me hope to high heaven that, somehow, I was different than she was.

We pulled into Melanie's neighborhood before long. Her house was the third on the block and huge, about average size for the houses in this neighborhood. I'd been over so often that it seemed like a second home for me, but from the outside—the inside too, really—it was intimidating as all get-out.

Melanie bounded out of the house not ten seconds later, slammed the front door behind her, and skipped down the driveway in her high heels.

"Do your parents know we're here?" Cherry asked when she climbed into the back seat.

"They won't even notice I'm gone," Mel said, rolling her eyes. She leaned forward and put her chin on my shoulder. "Hey, Christine! Long time no see."

I laughed. "We talked on the phone on Sunday."

"That's why I said 'see,' silly!" She pinched my cheek, then leaned back in her seat. "What'd you get for Christmas?"

How could I have forgotten? I sat up straighter and grinned. "My mom talked my dad into letting me get a car." I still didn't know how it had happened, but sometime between arguments about Dad's work hours, they'd managed to agree on something.

"What are you getting?" Melanie leaned forward again.

"I don't know yet." I grinned, relishing the idea of being able to drive myself around instead of needing a ride home from school every day. Maybe now I'd finally feel like I was sixteen instead of twelve, which was how old my parents seemed to think I was most of the time.

"You have to bring it to school when we get back," Mel gushed. "I want to see it!"

"I can drive you," I reminded her.

Mel's eyes lit up and, as Cherry looked on in amusement, she began to talk animatedly about what cars were too flashy, which ones weren't flashy enough, and so on.

She didn't notice, of course, when I stopped listening fifteen seconds in.

xxxx

"Let's try the bowling alley," I said as soon as we drove past Jay's. We'd already made one trip down the Ribbon and had run into pretty much everyone except Tricia, Sharon, and the others—either in cars or hanging out by the hot dog stands. They must have parked somewhere.

"All right." Cherry knew what I meant. There were several bowling alleys on the Ribbon, but Lucky Strike was the only one that mattered when it came to seeing and being seen in the parking lot. It was positioned near the center of the shops and restaurants that lined one side of the street and was close enough to see what was going on without having to stay in your car like you did at Jay's. That meant there were always a bunch of kids hanging around in the parking lot, and the bowling alley itself was the busiest in town, too.

Sure enough, Todd's green Thunderbird was parked, facing the street, in front of the bowling alley. Greg, Andy, and David were sitting cross-legged on the hood, yelling things I probably didn't want to hear at a few girls passing by in a red Camaro.

"Hurry up!" Melanie waved at them. I was glad I was sitting up front instead of her, or she might have tried something with the steering wheel.

Cherry turned into the parking lot, and Melanie jumped out of the car the second it stopped.

I took my time getting out. David was motioning for me to come over, and his smile was so sweet that I wished I could feel the same way about him that I did about Ponyboy. I wished his smile tied my stomach in knots, but it didn't. Gosh, I was a horrible date.

What had I gotten myself into? I smiled back and followed Melanie and Cherry over to Todd's car.

Melanie and I jumped into the back seat while Cherry disappeared to find Todd. I could tell Melanie was watching me, waiting to see how I'd act with David, and I knew she was thinking about our phone conversation.

Well, I'd show her she didn't have any reason to worry. Maybe then she'd mind her own business.

David and Greg climbed into the front so we could talk. They had food from one of the diners with them, but I knew from experience that Mel and I weren't allowed to have any, even if they offered. It was just one of those rules of being a cheerleader that you didn't question. So even though I was starving, I declined David's offer to share with me.

Sharon, Tricia, Valerie, and Nancy wandered over before long, and I was glad; it took some of the pressure of the conversation off of me.

David was a nice boy, and even nicer to talk to, and I was glad. While I felt terribly awkward trying to make small talk, he was completely at his ease. Then again, there was never much need to talk with Melanie around. I swear, that girl could hold a conversation with herself all day.

Hanging around the Ribbon was always fun, and I liked it a lot better when I was parked and moving from car to car than when I was riding up and down the street. Moving around and jumping into the cars of people we knew was how we communicated; you could hear all the latest gossip—and overhear even more if you were quiet. And I had missed out on a lot by staying home for three weeks.

You'd think that since school was out for Christmas, people would have less to talk about since we didn't all see each other every day and so much was always happening at school, but it was just the opposite; people were out every night now, and that meant more dates, more fights, and a lot more to talk about.

I was so caught up in finding out everything that was going on that, until Libby Burns' name was mentioned, I completely forgot the main reason I'd wanted to check out the bowling alley in the first place.

And then that reason walked right out the side door wearing a Lucky Strike uniform shirt with his arm around Libby.

Melanie saw Pony at the same time as I did, I think, and shot me a sideways glance that she must have thought was subtle.

Casually, I let my hair fall across my face to shield it from view and moved closer to David. Maybe he wouldn't see me.

"Curtis!" David put his hand up and waved.

_Shit! _"Why'd you do that?" I blurted out; clearly, David had gone crazy.

Melanie stared. David stared. Even Greg frowned in confusion at how upset I sounded. I kicked myself for being such a coward.

Ponyboy lifted his hand to wave, spotted me, and frowned. He said something to Libby, and the two of them started in our direction.

I couldn't do this. I wasn't going to talk to him. Melanie was watching me and David was still staring in confusion and—

"I'll be right back," I said, and jumped out of the car before anyone had time to say anything.

I ducked into the bowling alley and ran for the bathrooms, just in case Melanie came in after me. She didn't, so I fixed my hair and make-up in front of the mirror and convinced myself I was being an idiot. Pony'd probably just stopped over to say hi. He was probably gone already.

But I should have learned by now. I was never right about these things.

Ponyboy was still standing by Todd's car, chatting away. I could tell even from behind that Libby was annoyed, just from her posture. She'd be even angrier if she knew I was there. I was sure she hadn't seen me; she'd taken to glaring at me when she saw me at school, and boy, for a little thing she sure could be intimidating.

At that moment, Libby turned to go, maybe over to Jay's, and Ponyboy turned, too, to say something to her. He caught my eye before I could duck back inside. He said goodbye to David and loped over to where I stood rooted to the spot.

"Hey there," he said, as if I wasn't staring at him, feeling something between astonishment and anger. I noted confusedly, in some detached part of my mind, that he was wearing hair grease—I could tell even from under his cap.

My feet finally came unglued from the ground, and I turned to leave, but Pony caught me around the waist quicker than anything.

I would have been able to get free—he would have let go if I'd struggled—but I was too stunned to move.

"What's wrong?" He had a few bruises along his jawline and a new cut on his chin that was sure to leave a scar. I wondered vaguely when Anthony Meyers had caught up with him.

"I—nothing." I tried to keep my breathing regular, but I couldn't even seem to think straight. I carefully avoided looking at him.

Pony leaned closer. I gasped in spite of myself. "You're lyin'," he said without hesitation. His green eyes bore into mine like he was just waiting for me to break down and tell him what was wrong. Like he could make me do whatever he wanted.

"I'm not." I managed to keep my gaze steadily on him until his fingers laced through mine and I blushed and looked down out of habit.

"You are," Ponyboy said.

I looked over his shoulder. "So what?"

"Well, what's the matter, then?" He wasn't going to leave it alone. When I looked at him again he was watching me, intently, frustratedly.

"Ponyboy …"

"I want to know, Christine."

"What do you care?" My voice sounded breathier than I'd intended, because he'd moved even closer and still hadn't let go of my hands.

Pony frowned and stepped back a little, allowing me to breathe properly again. "What does that mean?" He looked genuinely confused, and I didn't know whether I wanted to kiss him or slap him for being so stupid.

Then I thought about Libby and my anger came back in a heady rush. I wasn't going to let him keep playing games like he was.

"That means you'd rather be comforting Libby Burns than me from what I've heard."

I could tell from the look on his face that my comment had hit its mark.

"Christine, I don't—"

"No, wait, don't tell me," I said sarcastically. "You didn't mean to kiss her, right? Just like you didn't mean to take her out?"

Ponyboy's jaw clenched. I'd hit a nerve. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet. "What do you care?" He repeated my words from just a minute earlier, threw them back in my face.

"What?" I was caught off guard.

"What does it matter to you?" he asked.

My jaw went slack with surprise. Was he trying to make me say it out loud, or was he really that blind? Could he really not see what I had been showing him over and over?

Either way, I didn't have the patience. I pulled my hands back and turned away abruptly.

"Christine—" Pony caught onto my hand again.

I pulled it right back, sputtering helplessly as I tried to think of something to say. "Are you … do you really … ?" I honestly couldn't think of anything else to say. I was speechless.

"I didn't mean it that way," he said.

"Yeah?" I lifted my chin angrily. "What _did _you mean, then?"

Ponyboy wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me closer. I gasped. "I meant"—one hand threaded through my hair—"yellow's a real good color on you."

This wasn't fair. Did he think he could kiss one girl and make another fall at his feet just by—just—

Oh, Lordy—

Our foreheads pressed together. My mind was reeling, I seemed to have lost control over my actions, and I couldn't have pulled away if I tried.

My eyes closed of their own accord, and my hands moved to clutch onto the sleeves of his shirt because I was afraid I might collapse. His lips barely brushed over mine, but I felt it everywhere. My skin tingled, and any rational thought had left my mind as he kissed me again.

Until a rather loud voice broke through my hazy thoughts and brought me crashing unpleasantly back into reality.

"Are you sure? I'm going to go look." Valerie. Oh.

_Oh._

"Glory," Ponyboy choked out, and we were suddenly broken apart. I didn't know who had pulled away, but it was just in time. Valerie came around the corner of the building.

"Chrissy?" She frowned in confusion and looked at me closely. "Where on earth did you get to?"

"Um …" My mind still hazy, I looked over at where Ponyboy had stood.

He was gone.

* * *

**Whoa. I had the whole chapter outlined and I still wasn't expecting that. Was it worth the wait?**


	13. Back to School & Dinnertime Chats

**A/N: **Feel free to point out any mistakes. I'm in a hurry right now, unfortunately.

**Disclaimer: **Hinton owns.

**

* * *

**

Chapter Thirteen: Back to School and Dinnertime Chats

"Hey!" Melanie squealed as she bolted out her front door on Monday morning. She ran down the front steps, barefoot, and threw her arms around me like it'd been months since she'd seen me instead of a week. I was tall enough that I could lift her clear off the ground.

"How are you?" She pulled back and noticed my car for the first time. "Ohmygoodness, it's so cute!"

I smiled with pride. It was a light blue Ford convertible—not real expensive, but it was all mine.

"When did you get it?" Melanie was walking around the car, examining it from all angles.

"Just yesterday when we got back," I said. "We went and picked it out the day y'all left. Hey, how was Aspen?"

"Same as every year," Melanie said with a giggle. She jumped into the passenger seat. "Come on, we need to leave now if we don't want to be late. And I want to see Sharon before homeroom."

I climbed into the driver's seat without reminding her that if it weren't for her, I would be halfway to school already.

We pulled out of the driveway, leaving Mel's red Mustang and her mother's silver Rolls Royce behind.

"Hey, guess who called me last night?" Melanie asked, sliding her feet into her high heels.

"Who?" I asked absently. We turned out of the neighborhood.

"Greg Anderson."

She was looking at me expectantly, so I said, "Oh, that's nice."

"He was talking about taking me out on Friday night."

"That's great," I replied, flicking my right turn signal. I could probably keep up my side of the conversation the whole way to school just by saying the occasional "Oh, that's nice", with an "Oh, no!" or two sprinkled in.

Melanie glanced at me. "So, do you think you and Dave want to double with us?"

"Oh, that's—" I caught myself. "Sure. Sounds like fun."

"So you two are still going out and everything?"

I glanced away from the road for the first time to meet her eyes. "Yeah, of course," I said. She was looking at me funny. "Why wouldn't we be?"

"Oh, you know … after you ran off that night at the Ribbon, I just wondered whether he got mad," Mel said.

I started at the mention of Friday night, but Melanie didn't seem to notice. My stomach headed south, like it did every time I thought about what was either the best or worst night of my life so far. "I told you I wasn't feeling good," I managed to say, avoiding her eyes. I was a terrible liar. "When I explained things to him, he was fine." That much was true.

"If you don't watch out, that poor boy is going to start thinking you don't like him."

Startled, I glanced at Melanie again, but she just shrugged. I focused on the road ahead so I wouldn't have to look at her; I would probably end up driving us clear into a street sign if I didn't pay attention to where we were going.

"Well, don't worry, we'll be there," I said. "I can't wait."

It was true. I _did _want to go out with David.

Right, and my heart _didn't _stop beating for a second every time I thought about Ponyboy Curtis. And I _never_ thought about how he'd smelled—like soap and leather and grass and pine—or how he'd tasted—like chocolate and cigarettes. My mouth _wasn't _still tingling when I went to sleep that night. I _didn't _want to kiss him again.

And, most importantly, I was _not _incurably infatuated with that senseless boy.

xxxx

It hurt somewhere in the pit of my stomach when Ponyboy walked into English class, scanned the room, and spotted me. The ache grew worse when he sat down next to me and tried to say something, and ten times worse when I turned away.

Ms. Belmont started class, and I occupied myself with our new reading assignment and occasionally glancing to my left while Ponyboy opened a battered paperback book under his desk and began to read. Knowing him, he'd already read our new play anyhow.

I told myself that it bugged me that he read even more than I did.

At some point, Pony pulled a sheet of paper from his notebook, scrawled something on it, and placed it on my desk. I wanted to flick it off and pretend it had never been there, but I didn't have the heart do it. So instead, I stuffed it into my notebook without even glancing at him.

Class had gone back to normal since we'd finished _Romeo and Juliet_, and Ms. Belmont was able to keep order in the classroom. But I'd started counting on Ponyboy to keep me entertained during boring English lessons, and now I couldn't even look at him without feeling an overwhelming mixture of anger and—even though I hated myself for it—some sort of longing. And it seemed like every time I even glanced in his direction, his eyes slid over and met mine. It was infuriating.

Finally, I gave up on paying attention, turned away from Pony—not an easy feat, since our desks were all crammed so close together I could practically feel his body heat—and put my head down so I wasn't in danger of looking at him. If I didn't start sitting somewhere else, I was going to be in for a long semester.

xxxx

I slunk around like a coward all week, but by Monday afternoon I'd had enough. Ponyboy gave up on trying to talk to me after a few days and started sitting across the room from me. I think he was trying not to intrude, but he was driving me crazy.

After gym, I'd told myself, I would march up to him and demand to know what was going on. Because I had no idea.

Of course, the idea sounded a lot more appealing until the last bell rang.

I slammed my locker shut, shoved my English notebook into my book bag, and turned around, and almost ran headfirst into Two-Bit.

"Hey, Chrissy." He grinned at me, but it wasn't that typical crazy grin of his.

"Two-Bit!" I wasn't sure whether I was happy to see him or not, but I _had _missed talking to him—I'd avoided him like the plague since I'd overheard him talking about Pony and Libby. I still wasn't sure whether he knew I'd heard him.

"Long time no see," he said.

I looked at him closely. How much did he know? It was hard to tell with someone like Two-Bit. Something seemed off, and knowing Two-Bit, he'd either figured it out or dragged it out of Ponyboy. But then, I sure didn't tell Melanie everything …

"I haven't been around much," I said.

"No kiddin'," Two-Bit said. "Where you been keepin' yourself?"

It was a good question, I guess. I hadn't talked to him in at least three weeks, and I used to see him every day.

"Not so near Ponyboy." I forced a smile. We started down the hall.

"Funny," Two-Bit said lightly, "I was under the impression you two were … closer than ever."

I almost dropped the books I was carrying. He laughed.

"Did he tell you?" I faced him directly and raised my chin. This wasn't something I needed him spreading all over school.

"No," Two-Bit said with a grin, "you did. Just now."

"What—?" I sputtered angrily, but I was at a loss. I'd just given myself up, and now he knew for sure. I gave in. "How'd you guess?"

Two-Bit cocked an eyebrow. "I ain't dumb," he said. "You've been avoiding me an' Pony all week, and we all seen you with Mr. Letter Jacket. Pony wouldn't tell me why he didn't want to see you, so … I put the pieces together."

I huffed, irate but somewhat impressed. He dug real well, Two-Bit.

"You know …" We reached the back door, and Two-Bit held it open for me with a gallant bow. "Pony's awful hung up on you."

"Yeah?" I was unimpressed. "He sure could've fooled me."

"Aw, come on." He chased after me when I tried to walk away. I spotted Tricia, Val, and Sharon across the lawn and avoided looking at Two-Bit—even though my cowardice made my stomach churn, I hoped they wouldn't see me.

Two-Bit prodded my elbow to ensure he had my attention; we both knew he couldn't grab me, even by the arm, because of his hair and his jacket and his beat-up cowboy boots. "Hey," he said. "I'm bein' serious, Chrissy." I hadn't seen him so … _unsmiling_ since that evening he'd found Pony and me in front of the school.

I opened my mouth to reply, but there was nothing to say. I missed Pony. I wished we could study together again. I wished he would hold my hands and play with my hair again. I wished he would lean over my shoulder and distract me when I was trying to work and whisper in my ear again.

If we had to just be friends, then so be it. It was better than nothing.

"Two-Bit, I don't see how this is your business." My resolve was weakening, and I knew he could tell.

"It became my business when Pony got involved." His tone was sharper than I'd expected. "He's just a kid, Chrissy."

A _kid_? What sort of excuse was that for whatever game Ponyboy was playing with me?

"I'm just a kid, too, Two-Bit," I told him. "I don't even know what I want, so how could _you _know?"

Two-Bit's eyebrow went back up. "Do you take me for an idiot?"

My anger came rushing back. What was he trying to imply? I whirled to face him, Tricia Hogan be damned. "Two-Bit! Would you kindly leave me alone? You don't know me! You don't know what the hell you're talking about."

Two-Bit glanced around, and I blushed from habit. No matter how angry I was, I had no reason to cause a scene.

"I may not know you, but I know the kid, and _he_ knows you," Two-Bit said calmly.

"And what does that mean?" I crossed my arms.

"That means Pony don't dig scatterbrained broads, an' that if he says you can't make up your mind, it's true."

Incensed, I raised myself to my full height. If Libby Burns wasn't a _scatterbrained broad_, then who was? "_I _can't make up my mind?"

"That's what I said," replied Two-Bit, stony-faced. I was beginning to miss the humorous glint in his eyes. "You think we don't see the way you look around before you talk to us in the halls or check out the parking lot before you get in the car with us? You're afraid of what your friends might think. Tell me, Christine, how come it was okay to talk to us until Melanie Walker decided it wasn't?"

Shame flooded through me as I realized he was right.

"Don't even say this is about Pony; it's about you an' her, and you're dragging Pony into it. Don't talk to the kid if you ain't interested, but don't pretend this isn't about you."

I must have looked as stricken as I felt, because Two-Bit's frown evaporated. "He's havin' a tough time, Chrissy. Sodapop …" He broke off and shook his head. "Sodapop's special. Ya dig? We're all having a tough time, but the kid's takin' it real bad. They were always real close."

I thought about the way Ponyboy talked about his brothers. Darry was a superhero and Sodapop—well, Pony worshiped the ground Sodapop walked on.

"I'm worried about him," Two-Bit said when I didn't reply. "If he doesn't start listenin' to someone who'll talk sense, he's gonna get in a lot of trouble."

"So what do you want me to do?" I asked quietly.

"Just talk to him, Chrissy."

Talk to Ponyboy? I didn't want to talk to him. I could hardly even look at him any more.

But what if Two-Bit was right? What if Pony wound up getting himself in trouble? Anyone could tell he wasn't the most sensible guy around … and he wasn't exactly known for being responsible or thinking things through.

Asking out Libby Burns … fighting her boyfriend … hanging around Curly Shepard … kissing me behind a bowling alley while we were both on dates with someone else. He wasn't just acting reckless—he was acting downright stupid.

"I don't know, Two-Bit," I said.

"We miss ya," Two-Bit said with a brave stab at his familiar grin.

Hesitating, I glanced across the parking lot at where I knew Pony would be—standing with a cluster of boys and girls from his neighborhood. He'd recently taken to spending time exclusively in their company … or with people like them.

People who _weren't _like him.

I tried to force the work _okay _out of my mouth, but it stuck in my throat.

Two-Bit was looking at me expectantly, but someone pushed past me from behind before I could make myself say yes.

Libby Burns flipped her long red hair over her shoulder and moved on without even glancing back. I stood, frozen, as she approached Ponyboy from behind and wrapped her arms around his waist. When he turned around, she lifted herself up on her toes and kissed him in front of the entire parking lot.

I heard his friends' hollers clear from where I was standing.

Two-Bit cleared his throat uncomfortably while I remained absolutely still, caught somewhere between devastation and mortification.

That was when the truth hit me like a blow to the head. It didn't matter if I was pretty or looked good in yellow. It didn't matter that there was a physical attraction between Ponyboy and me, and it didn't matter how much I may have liked him. I couldn't have him; he was someone else's. My eyes stung and my cheeks burned and I wanted so badly to cry, but I couldn't.

"I …" I muttered confusedly. "I just remembered I have to find, um …" It took me a minute to remember who I was talking about. "Melanie. I have to find Melanie. I'm supposed to drive her home."

I hurried off before Two-Bit even had a chance to react.

How could I have been so stupid? He kissed me because he was upset and confused. He wasn't going to stop going out with Libby. Nothing was going to change.

Blinking furiously to keep my pathetic tears at bay, I pushed my way through the crowd of students. If anyone tried to talk to me, I didn't hear it until someone latched onto my arm and spoke right into my ear. I looked up reluctantly.

Melanie.

xxxx

"More potatoes, Melanie?" Mom asked politely.

Melanie smiled around a mouthful of carrots. "Please." I couldn't ever remember seeing her eat so much in public.

I sat stiffly in my chair and moved my own potatoes around my plate with my fork, trying to spread them out so it'd look like I'd eaten some.

"Chrissy? Are you going to eat your food or just play with it?" Mom asked, heaping a generous serving of potatoes onto Melanie's plate.

"I'm not hungry." I didn't look up.

"Christine," my mother said in her _you'd better not mess with me unless you want your ass grounded _tone of voice—the one that had a touch of gentleness added in so no one else would suspect how dangerous it really was.

I rolled my eyes. "Fine," I said, and picked up my fork. I shoved a bite of potatoes into my mouth. They tasted like cardboard.

Mel cleared her throat, clearly uncomfortable with the tense silence. "Chris, did you hear about that party next week?"

I choked on my food.

"What's this?" Mom asked mildly.

"Nothing, Mama." I kicked Melanie under the table, hoping she'd get the message.

"Ouch!" Melanie yelped.

I kicked her again.

Mom cleared her throat. "What party is this, Chrissy?"

I sighed. Whatever party it was, I'd been hoping to catch my mother in a good mood the next time I asked to go out. She was still huffing about the last time I got in late, and she was still convinced I'd been drinking that night on the Ribbon. "What party, Mel?"

"Greg was telling me about it today," Melanie said, shooting me an apologetic glance. "It's at his house."

"Greg Anderson?" my mother broke in. "Isn't he that football player—"

"Basketball player," I corrected automatically. "Mel's going with him, didn't she mention it?"

Melanie frowned at me. I shrugged; she deserved it.

"Will this party be chaperoned?" Mom asked.

Melanie snorted into her glass of milk. My cheeks burned in embarrassment. Why couldn't my mother be like Mel's?

"I don't know, Mom," I said. "It's really not a big deal."

As soon as I said it, I knew it was the wrong thing to say. And, sure enough, Mom jumped in. "Chrissy, you know how I feel about parties with alcohol. I used to feel I could trust your judgment, but I'm just not sure anymore."

Of course she was trying to make me feel guilty. It'd always worked before. Well, not this time.

"Why not, Mom? Because I came home late from one party? At least _I _wasn't the one drunk! Or is it because I'm associating with boys whose mothers aren't in your gardening club?"

"Chrissy," Mom said with forced calm, "you know that's not true."

"Yes, it is!" I ignored Melanie, who had ducked her head down to stare at her plate, and Kelly, whose head was swiveling back and forth like we were involved in a particularly fascinating tennis match. "Mom, stop being so hypocritical! I haven't given you _any _reason not to trust me."

Mom was getting mad, but I didn't care. I was already there. When did everything in my life decide to collapse on me at once? My mother didn't trust me, I hardly knew my best friend anymore, and the one _stupid _boy who had started all of my problems at school couldn't even be bothered to call me to talk about what was going on between us.

"Christine, if I can't trust you to tell me the truth, I can't trust you to be out at a party I don't know anything about!"

"Then ask Melanie!" I threw my napkin down on the table and jumped to my feet. "I'm sure she knows all about it." I caught the look on my mother's face and looked down, ashamed. "Excuse me."

I hurried out of the room, gathered my notebooks from the foyer table, and took the stairs two at a time.

Melanie knocked on my door a minute later. "Come in," I said, halfheartedly punching my pillow.

"Hey." She poked her head inside, and the rest of her followed shortly. "Are you all right?"

"I don't know." I stared at my pillow. "She just makes me really mad sometimes."

Mel laughed shortly. "You're a teenager, remember? She's supposed to make you mad _all _the time."

I tried to grin.

"I … should probably go," Melanie said. "My parents are bound to notice I'm gone eventually."

I glanced up, surprised. "You didn't call them?"

Melanie shrugged. "They won't mind."

There was a brief silence.

"Do you need a ride home?" I asked.

"I think I'll walk," Melanie said. "See you tomorrow."

I lay back on my bed and listened to the faint sounds of Mel thanking my mother for dinner. The front door closed, and Mom yelled up, right on cue, "Chrissy, have you done your homework?"

I made a face at my bedroom door and threw my English notebook at the wall across from my bed. I was never going to finish everything tonight.

But I did have a Shakespeare quiz tomorrow.

Muttering under my breath, I rolled off my bed and went to retrieve my notebook. I picked it up and a crumpled piece of notebook paper fell out.

_Christine,_

_I know you don't want to talk to me right now. I can't say I blame you. But I just wanted to say I'm real sorry about what happened that night on the Ribbon. It was awful for me to kiss you like that, but gosh, I wanted to._

_I wish we could still be friends, but I guess it isn't really working out. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am that I messed everything up for us, but I promise I'll stay out of your way from now on._

_David's a lucky guy._

_Ponyboy Curtis_

I balled the paper in my fist and sank onto the floor, battling with a sudden urge to cry. _That goddamned idiot._


	14. Serious Talks & Interfering

**A/N:** This chapter was really, really difficult to get out; I wound up having to type the entire thing into a previously uploaded document that I'm not using because of some issues with my computers. I really hope there are no formatting problems, but I'm not sure. Also, I lost my work twice. I'm ... not really too tech-savvy.

So, here we go ... chapter fourteen, take three.

**Disclaimer:** S.E. Hinton owns _The Outsiders_, _That Was Then, This Is Now_, and all associated characters, events, locations, etc. I am not S.E. Hinton and am making no profit from this fic.

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**Chapter Fourteen: Serious Talks and Interfering**

Ponyboy and I stopped talking to each other altogether, and for the first time, I was glad that we only had one class together. When Melanie went to the library at lunchtime, she stopped asking if I wanted to come along. She knew what the answer would be.

School was quickly becoming a place I dreaded going. All it meant was suspicious glances from my friends (especially Melanie), questions I didn't want to answer, and the reminder that a friendship that had become one of the best things about going to school had fallen apart and there was nothing I could do about it.

Meanwhile, I handled my problems the way my mother had taught me. I pretended they weren't there.

xxxx

_Six-letter word for_ --

"Hey there."

I looked up and almost groaned. Two-Bit was standing over me, pretending to read my crossword puzzle over my shoulder. He was grinning, which was a relief, but I didn't want to talk to him at all.

Who had even let him into the library, anyway?

"Hi, Two-Bit," I said. I tried to grin back at him, but it probably came out more like a grimace. "What do you want?"

He gave me an injured look. "What, I can't say _hi _now?"

I sighed. This was already feeling painfully awkward. We had gotten along fine -- when we'd seen each other -- until the Winter Dance. That one stupid night had ruined everything.

"Two-Bit," I said to the table, "I'm really not in the mood for this. I know you want to talk to me about something."

"How do you know that?" Two-Bit pulled out the chair across from me and sat down.

"Because you've hardly even looked at me since last week," I said matter-of-factly. I wasn't joking -- I really wasn't in the mood to beat around the bush. My day had been terrible from the second I woke up (fifteen minutes behind schedule). Really, I was just glad I'd hardly seen Melanie all day. All sorts of things come out of my mouth when I'm in a bad mood.

Two-Bit stared at me. "Hey. Whatsa matter?"

"Nothing." I rolled my eyes at the ceiling.

"Christine," he said, so firmly that I finally met his eyes. "Why do you just expect people to be able to read your mind? If you don't wanta talk, I ain't gonna bug ya, but don't bottle shi -- stuff up so much."

I looked away, embarrassed, and slid my silver cross back and forth on its chain. "I'm sorry," I muttered. "My day hasn't been going real great so far." Two-Bit Mathews was the last person I wanted to take my mood out on. He had enough worries, I was sure.

"Hey, that's all right." And just like that, he was grinning again. I marveled. How could he just bounce away from everything unscathed? He was like a rubber band.

"Shouldn't you be on your way home?" I asked, careful to avoid mentioning names.

Two-Bit's brow knit slightly, but his frown disappeared the next instant. "Ponyboy's got track an' I said I would wait for him," he said.

"Oh." I wrapped a curl around my finger. "How long are you going to be here?"

He shrugged. "I dunno. A while, I guess."

"And you decided you'd wait for him in the library?" I smiled for what seemed like the first time in days. "You know that's the last place he'll ever look for you, right?"

I could have cried in relief when his familiar grin returned, even if it probably wouldn't last long with the way we went back and forth. "He can't get mad; remember when he sent me lookin' all over the school for him?" Two-Bit looked at me. "You were right, though," he added. "I was lookin' for you. I didn't see you in the parkin' lot, and I thought you might be in here."

"Then you _did _want to talk to me?" I asked, something sinking in my stomach.

"I don't know," said Two-Bit. "I just never see you talkin' to anyone no more. When do you ever relax and have fun?"

I stiffened. "What are you talking about?"

"Hey, now, don't get defensive. You're jus' so worried all the time. That's all."

"Well, in case you haven't noticed," I said waspishly, "your friend Ponyboy has given me plenty to worry about." It wasn't fair to pin my problems on him, but somehow it made me feel better.

Two-Bit looked at me sharply. "Hey, whoa. Your problems ain't his bag right now."

"Why not?" I whispered, since the librarian was giving us both a dirty look. "I didn't have any until he came along."

"An' so what?" Two-Bit said. "You should know by now -- trouble doesn't just find him; it follows him everywhere." The librarian glared at him.

"Whoever said I wanted trouble?" I demanded.

"You did," Two-Bit said simply, "when you got yourself all caught up in him."

He was right. I knew it. But I wasn't ready to let go of my argument just yet. "Two-Bit, why are you always defending him?" I asked him. "He isn't exactly a saint, you know."

"'Cause you're hurtin' him," Two-Bit said, "an' that's the last thing he needs. He's gotten himself into enough trouble." He stood to leave. "This ain't ever gonna be easy, Christine."

I watched him go dazedly and suddenly realized that he was the most sensible person I'd talked to in a long time.

xxxx

Melanie chattered nonstop about Greg's party on the way to school the next day and showed no signs of stopping when we reached her locker. By the time she finally thought to ask me whether my mother had said I could go, I had seven minutes to get to homeroom and wasn't exactly feeling very patient, which you had to be when Melanie got some idea in her head.

We'd passed Ponyboy and Libby in the hall. They were standing next to her locker, arguing. I'd tried not to smirk. Libby had met my eye and glared; Pony glanced at me and looked away like I was a stranger.

"Have you talked to her yet?" Mel asked impatiently -- I hadn't been very attentive that morning.

I'd been looking at Libby. I started. "Who?"

"Your _mother_," Melanie said, rolling her eyes. "You have to come with us."

"Why's that?" I asked her.

"_Because_," she said importantly, "we won't be at Greg's for long. Didn't I tell you? We want to check out another party once we've stopped by Greg's." I didn't like the way she was smiling. It was the smile that meant she was going to get us in trouble and I was going to get us out of it.

I decided to humor her, though, because she was getting irritated with me."Where are we going?"

She smiled in delight, her annoyance gone. She loved knowing things other people didn't. "You'll have to wait and see."

"So you want me to get permission to go to Greg's party so I can go somewhere else?" I asked in confusion. Melanie always just made things more complicated than they had to be.

"Exactly," Mel said as if this made perfect sense.

I stared at her. "If my mother doesn't want me to go to Greg's party, why should I be able to go to this party I know nothing about?"

"That's why we're not _telling_ her," said Melanie, exasperated.

"Oh, well, that makes sense," I said sarcastically. "Do you want me to be grounded for the rest of my life?"

"Of course not. Christine, this is simple. Convince your mom to let you go to Greg's party. We can go for a while and leave. That way, you're technically not lying to your mother. You're just not telling the whole truth."

This was ridiculous. "Why can't I just ask her to go to the other party?"

Melanie sighed like I was a lost cause. "She doesn't even want you to go to Greg's. She'd never say yes. And if you don't ask, she never said no."

I wondered how much practice she had with this. I didn't like lying to my parents and almost never did. Melanie, though ... Mel did what she wanted.

"And what if she says no?" I wanted to know.

"Then we have to sneak out," Melanie said promptly as the bell rang and the hall was filled with the sounds of lockers slamming and friends saying goodbye to each other. She said it the way I might say, "It's supposed to rain tomorrow."

"She'll kill me if she catches me," I said desperately.

Mel, who had started down the hall, glanced at me over her shoulder. "Make sure she says yes."

xxxx

"No."

"Mama --"

My mother looked up from her dinner preparations. "Chrissy, I know Greg's parents. They have no discipline."

"Neither do Melanie's parents!" I protested. "I'm still allowed to go to her house."

"_Melanie_ does not throw parties her parents don't know about," Mom said firmly.

I opened my mouth to protest, but quickly closed it again. I'd let her believe that if she wanted to. "I'm sure Greg's parents know what's going on," I said instead. "Just because you don't let me do anything --"

"They don't know." Mama selected a knife from our drawer of silverware and began chopping cucumbers for a salad. "I talked to Dot Anderson at the country club the other day. She was talking about how nice it is to be able to trust her son."

My eyes widened in horror. "She knows?"

"Of course not," my mother said stiffly, her slicing becoming quicker and quicker. "Gregory would _never_ disobey his parents that way. My daughter must have been talking about someone else." She glared at her cucumber.

It had been one of those little contests my friends' mothers had, then, over whose child was better behaved, smarter, more accomplished, or whatever else they could think of.

"I told her you wouldn't lie to me," my mother rambled, more to herself than to me. "But that woman thinks she knows everything."

"I can't believe you told her!" I groaned. "No one at school will talk to me ever again if his parents cancel the party."

"Don't worry," Mom said. "Dot would never believe anything I said about her son."

I'd never get permission to go now. "When's Dad getting home?" Maybe he'd be on my side.

"You call him if you want to know," Mom snapped, "but I need you to set the table." Her tone left no room for arguments -- unless I felt like being sent to my room and grounded ... again.

I sighed. "Yes, ma'am."

Melanie wasn't going to be happy.

xxxx

Ponyboy and Libby broke up.

Honestly, the news stunned me. It shouldn't have, but it did.

I was also happy to hear it. I shouldn't have been, but I was.

It was the news of the day at school. Apparently, the whole thing was a very dramatic sight. Maybe Two-Bit was right -- trouble _did_ seem to follow Pony wherever he went. Then again, _trouble_ was Libby Burns' middle name.

I was walking to lunch alone and spotted Two-Bit ahead of me. Normally, I might have tried to avoid him, but I didn't want him to know how uncomfortable he made me. Besides, I missed having conversations that didn't end with one of us angry. I wanted to at least pretend that everything was fine -- everything between Two-Bit and me, between Pony and me ...

And, fine, if he had any information to offer, I wouldn't say no.

"Two-Bit!" I raced to catch up with him.

He turned around and stopped to wait for me.

"Hi." I caught my breath. "Are you going to the cafeteria?"

"Naw." Two-Bit grinned. Maybe he wanted to pretend, too. "Me an' some guys are gonna head to a grocery store or somethin'. I think the cafeteria ladies are still sore about the time Bobby Sellars tripped an' fell." He scratched the back of his neck and tried to look sheepish.

I giggled at the memory. "He had that bruise for weeks, you know."

"He fell hard," Two-Bit said.

"And you have good aim," I told him, lifting an eyebrow and hugging my books closer to me.

Two-Bit lifted an eyebrow in response and was about to make some wisecrack when a voice behind me cut him off.

"Chrissy? I was waiting by your locker." David.

I spun around to face him. "I didn't know you'd be waiting," I said.

"I told you I would." He frowned, but it was an expression of concern, not annoyance. I couldn't ever remember seeing him really angry. "This morning after homeroom. Don't you remember?"

I didn't.

Avoiding looking directly at him, I said, "David, do you know Two-Bit Mathews?"

"Sure," David said with a grin. I wasn't surprised. Two-Bit could probably get along with anyone he wanted to. And everyone knew him, or knew of him.

"Christine was just lookin' for you, Dave-o," said Two-Bit. When I glanced at him, he shrugged.

"Come on." David took my hand. He cuffed Two-Bit on the shoulder. "Easy, man."

We left Two-Bit outside and walked the rest of the way to the cafeteria in silence. I was wondering why I was disappointed that David had hardly reacted to me walking around with a greaser he'd probably talked to once -- maybe twice -- before. Was I just hoping for excitement?

Because that was the problem with David. He was boring. It was a terrible thing to say, but maybe that was why he didn't make me nervous. He couldn't make me shiver when he touched me, and that was what I wanted. Chemistry.

For the first time, I felt an overwhelming urge to break the silence between us. David was clearly comfortable just walking, but the silence was overwhelming to me.

Something wasn't right.

I shouldn't have been wishing he would let go of my hand because it felt suffocating. Ponyboy used to hold my hand, and we used to walk in silence, but that was different.

It shouldn't have been.

But it was.

We got to the cafeteria after what seemed like forever. David held the door open for me. We joined the lunch line, and I grabbed whatever was in front of me. I wouldn't eat anything, anyway.

Melanie was sitting next to Sharon, and, surprisingly, neither of them was speaking. I dropped into the seat on her other side.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked immediately.

I stared. I wasn't really great at hiding what I was feeling most of the time, but Mel wasn't usually great at noticing things like that.

"I'm fine," I said blankly.

Melanie shrugged and returned to her food. She didn't really seem to be in the mood to talk, so I left her alone. She could get really snippy when you bugged her too much.

"Chrissy, what did you mother say about the party?" Laurie leaned forward in her seat.

Tricia looked up. "Yeah, what did she say?" she asked, her brown eyes sparkling -- a sure sign that some sort of nasty remark would soon follow. Sure enough, she added to the others, "Chrissy's not even allowed to go to Greg's party -- her mother would never let her go to Terry Jones'. Mrs. Anderson called my mother and told her that Mrs. Collins went down to the country club to tell her about the party." She giggled. "I'm sure she said you couldn't go. Right, Chrissy?"

"Hey!" Melanie said sharply.

"Tricia ..." Cherry touched Tricia's arm.

I stared down at the table, mortified. At least Greg wasn't there -- I might have died of embarrassment.

"Well?" Tricia shook Cherry off and looked at me.

I forced myself to look up at her. I couldn't very well lie to her. "She said --"

"She'll be there," Melanie blurted out.

Everyone stared at her, including me.

"We'll both be there," Mel said firmly, squeezing my arm. "Don't worry."

What on earth was going on in that scheming mind of hers? I wondered as Tricia shrugged and the rest of the cheerleaders turned their attention away from me and back to their respective conversations.

"Why'd you do that?" I whispered.

Melanie sighed. "I couldn't let her embarrass you like that, Chris. You need to stand up for yourself. Look, don't worry," she repeated. "I'll figure something out."

"If you say so." It was Melanie, after all. She'd think of something.

I began poking at my salad, determined to avoid David's eyes. I knew he would be watching me, and his bewildered, boyish sympathy was the last thing I needed right then.

Then I looked up and into a pair of green, green eyes and wondered if maybe boyish sympathy was exactly what I needed. Because I could tell from the look on Pony's face that he'd heard every snide word Tricia had said.

And if he wasn't sympathetic, I knew he'd just be disgusted.

I wanted to sink through the floor.

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**I would really appreciate any feedback you have to offer. (:**


	15. Wild Parties & Big Mistakes

**Disclaimer: **S.E. Hinton owns _The Outsiders_, _That Was Then, This Is Now_, and all associated characters, events, locations, etc. I am not S.E. Hinton and am making no profit from this fic.

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**Chapter Fifteen: Wild Parties and Big Mistakes**

Melanie closed my bedroom door with a soft _click_. "They just turned out the light," she said.

"Good." I stood in front of my mirror, smoothing down my perfectly curled hair until every strand was in place. My expression was placid, but inside I was a nervous wreck and wondering why oh why I had ever let Mel talk me into this. Sneaking out? Who was I trying to kid?

I didn't even feel like myself. I was wearing the shortest skirt I'd ever worn—it belonged to Melanie, actually—with white boots and more make-up than I ever wore at once. I'd even put on false eyelashes for the occasion, and I felt completely ridiculous, like I was some bad copy of myself … or maybe a bad copy of Libby Burns or Angela Shepard.

But, Mel had insisted, if we were going to do this, we were going to do it right.

When Melanie had told me we'd get to this party, it had never occurred that she was really intending to sneak out of the house. I'd thought maybe she would be able to convince my mother to change her mind. But here we were, all dolled up and ready to go.

Breaking curfew and sneaking out were things Melanie did all the time, and sure, I'd snuck in past curfew a fair number of times, but it was always because we'd stayed out later than we'd intended. Not because I'd _planned_ to trick my parents.

"Come on!" Melanie's voice broke into my thoughts. "Stop staring at yourself—you look fine."

"Thanks," I said dryly—trust her to immediately think that I was second-guessing how I looked.

Mel pulled on her sweater, crossed my room to the window, and opened it. "Let's get out of here," she said, gesturing for me to go first.

"You know, this would be a lot easier if we were at your house," I grumbled, smoothing my skirt nervously and eyeing the tree outside suspiciously. "Your parents wouldn't even care—_you're_ allowed to go."

I knew Melanie's parents were still sore, though, because her older sister, Lynn, had promised to visit this weekend and had backed out at the last minute. Again. Lynn was in college and treated us both like little kids.

Melanie pursed her lips and said nothing, so I decided it would be best to do what she wanted without asking any questions.

Sliding through a window in a skirt was tricky any time, but sliding through a window in a miniskirt and boots was damn near impossible. I was halfway terrified my skirt would get caught on the latch or that I'd fall. But Melanie had scoped out my window dozens of times before and had managed to get through—in _and _out—while completely crocked, so I figured I would be all right.

I balanced myself precariously on the window's narrow ledge. The next part, I knew, was a little trickier.

"Chrissy?"

I turned around in surprise. Kelly was standing in my doorway in her nightgown, blinking her eyes tiredly. "What are you doing?" she asked, looking smaller than ever in her pink nightgown as she hugged herself for warmth.

"Don't worry, Smelly," I whispered, even while panic shot through me. "I'll be back when you wake up."

Her lower lip wobbled.

"Kelly." Melanie's tone was stern. "I need you to be really grown-up, all right?"

"Okay …" Kelly looked wary, but I knew she worshiped Mel.

"Don't tell Mama and Daddy we're gone. They'll worry," I added. "I want this to be our secret. Can you handle that?"

Kelly's eyes lit up. "I won't tell," she said. "Promise."

"You can go back to sleep, Kelly," I said with a glance over at Melanie, who gestured for me to go.

As soon as Kelly had padded off down the hall again, I reached out for the tree branch that extended near my window and took a firm hold, then squeezed my eyes shut and lunged. My other hand caught onto the branch before I went tumbling.

My heart was beating in my ears as I swung myself across by my hands and gripped a smaller branch near the trunk of the tree.

The tree wasn't all that tall, and the branches were pretty sturdy, so I made it to the ground without too much trouble.

As soon as my feet hit the ground, Melanie swung off the windowsill and onto the tree, dropping from the highest branch and landing neatly on her feet.

In her car, I was silent for a minute, halfway expecting that Kelly had gone running to our parents, and glanced back to see if they were standing at the window. They weren't. I had made a clean getaway. I grinned out of pure relief.

"Exciting, huh?" Melanie asked with a sly grin.

Maybe it was the wind whipping at my face as we pulled out of the neighborhood, but it was sort of exhilarating to be out at night, knowing that I could get caught if one of my parents happened to wake up to check on me. I wasn't exactly a rule-breaker as a general rule, but I could see why some people were. It was a bit of a rush.

The feeling didn't last long, though, and I hugged my jacket closer as Mel's car picked up speed, grateful that I'd had the good sense to bring it with me. It looked like it would be an early spring, but the nights could still get pretty cold.

As Melanie started up with her chattering again, I stared out through the windshield. All I could think was, This party had better be worth it.

xxxx

We didn't end up staying at Greg's house for long.

Almost as soon as we got there, Laurie was dragging us out the door—Melanie didn't even have a chance to look for Greg. She didn't seem to mind, though. So I did what I did best and followed them.

Terry Jones' house wasn't that big, but the whole place was crawling with people. In fact, there were so many cars that we had to park two blocks away from his house and walk the rest of the way.

The music playing inside was audible from Melanie's car, and the party had spilled out onto the lawn.

Inside, the record player was going at full volume—a song I didn't recognize that made me realize I wouldn't be hearing any Beatles music here. There were some boys sitting around a table, playing poker, and everyone else was dancing close enough to make me blush or standing on the sidelines and chatting. A part of me had been worried that we'd get strange looks from the other kids, but no one seemed to notice that we didn't belong … or, if they did, no one cared enough to say anything.

I recognized lots of kids from school, and several from my chemistry or history classes. It seemed that the cheerleaders weren't the only ones who were out of their territory tonight.

"See?" Melanie waved at some boy I didn't know. "At least there's something going on around here."

I shrugged.

Cherry and Tricia were standing off to one side with a boy I didn't recognize. The boy was trying to hand Cherry a can of beer, but she kept waving it off, growing increasingly annoyed, until he left. Tricia was already sipping from another can, as calm and composed as could be. When they saw us, Cherry motioned for us to come over.

"Hey."

Tricia looked at me coolly. "Does your mother know you're out so late?"

"No, actually," I all but snapped. She was the last person I needed to deal with right then.

Melanie raised an eyebrow at me, but said nothing, for once.

"Geez, Chrissy"—Tricia's tone was harsh—"take this and relax, would you?"

She thrust her beer at me, and I looked at it incredulously. She really expected me to just do whatever she told me to. But looking from Tricia's face to Cherry's to Mel's and back to Tricia's, I decided it would be wiser to just keep my mouth shut and take the beer. Some things just weren't worth doing, and talking back to Tricia was one of them. It wouldn't get me anything but her signature eyebrow lift and a snippy cut-down.

So I forced a sip of beer—and the retort on the tip of my tongue—down my throat and said nothing.

It burned my throat.

xxxx

The beer was easier to take after the first few sips. I'd never been a drinker, but it was finally making sense to me why people seemed to like it so much. I felt a little tipsy, but it was the best I'd felt in months.

"Thanks," I said when Kevin, the nice boy I'd met on the dance floor, handed me another beer. Well, actually I shouted. The music was awful loud and I was having trouble hearing myself talk.

I took a sip. My head felt sort of funny, like it wasn't attached to my body the right way. It was like the feeling you get when you're dreaming just before you wake up—like nothing was quite real.

"Do you want to dance?" Kevin asked. He had wavy dark hair and was wearing a denim jacket. He had a really nice smile.

"Sure!" I handed my beer to Cherry, who was fanning her flushed face after fifteen minutes of dancing in the middle of the crowd of kids. She just shot me a quick glance and took the can carefully, like it might bite her. I didn't know what her problem was, but she kept chewing on her lower lip the way she did when she was nervous. She'd been fine when we were all dancing together.

We moved out into the crowd of dancing couples. I somehow managed to trip over my own feet and almost fell, but Kevin caught me before I could. I couldn't help laughing at my own clumsiness.

It was awful hot out in the middle of the crowd, and it made me feel even dizzier. I rested my hands on the Kevin's shoulders and left them there so I could keep my balance. He didn't seem to mind; the song was a slower one.

I closed my eyes and the room stopped spinning.

"Get your hands off of her, Williamson."

The familiar voice made me start with surprise. "Ponyboy!"

Ponyboy ignored me, though; he was glaring at Kevin. I couldn't imagine why.

"Whoa. Easy, man." Kevin held up his hands and backed away from me. I watched him leave, frowning. He was a really good dancer. Why would Pony want to scare off a perfectly nice boy?

"What'd you do that for?" I demanded. My head was spinning from being in this hot, crowded room, and struggled to keep my balance.

"Christine? Maybe you should take it easy," Ponyboy said, frowning.

"What's your problem?" I demanded. My voice sounded funny, even to me.

People were starting to look at us, and I could tell Pony didn't want the attention. He took me by the hand and said, "Maybe you should go outside and get some fresh air."

"Why?" I was doing just fine inside. Well, it was a little hot, and my ears were ringing from the music, but I was fine.

"Ponyboy." It was Cherry talking; she'd been watching me closely. She had her hand on his arm. "We didn't mean—"

He pulled away from her, not roughly, but firmly, and gave her a look I couldn't understand before pulling gently on my hand. I stumbled forward stupidly—I hadn't been expecting it—and he sighed, took me by the arm, and steered me to the door like I was a little kid. I wanted to tell him that I could walk by myself, but he was so close that I could smell pine, soap, and cigarettes and I couldn't get the words out.

Outside, the wind hit me like a slap in the face, and suddenly my mind wasn't so hazy. I was still having trouble keeping my balance, but glory, had it been this cold when Mel and I had gotten there? It couldn't have been.

"Here," Pony said automatically, and shrugged off his leather jacket to drape it around my shoulders.

I was going to tell him he could keep his jacket, because something told me I shouldn't have been there, with him, but I couldn't quite remember why when he was standing this close and his jacket was warm, so I kept it.

"Do you feel better?" He was left in a plaid button-up shirt and a thin T-shirt, but he didn't seem to mind.

"Yeah," I admitted, looking away. I took another sip of my drink.

He grabbed it from me—I cried out halfheartedly in protest—and dumped the contents into the grass, then tossed the can into the bushes. "Is this your first drink?"

"No …"

Ponyboy closed his eyes for a second, his expression so helpless that I couldn't help frowning. "How many drinks have you had?"

"Um …" I hiccupped, then giggled. I honestly couldn't remember. "Three?"

"Glory be." He ran a hand through his hair. "Are you trying to drive me crazy?"

"I drive you crazy?"

He stared at me, his eyes wide, exasperated. "You have no idea, Christine. Who brought you here tonight?"

"Melanie." I hadn't seen her since she'd gone off to dance with some boy. "An' Cherry. An' … Tricia."

"Why?"

I drew myself up indignantly. "_Why?_ … 'Cause they're my friends."

For the first time I could think of, Ponyboy looked honestly disgusted. "Tricia Hogan is your _friend_?" He shook his head. "Boy, I wonder what she'd say to you if she _didn't_ like you, then."

Even through my lightheadedness, I felt my face heat up. "You, Ponyboy Curtis, are …" I couldn't think of anything bad enough to call him. "You're wrong. That's why … that's why …"—I pointed at him accusingly—"she said to stay away from _you_. She cares 'bout me."

He looked at me like I'd slapped him in the face. I smiled, triumphant.

"Christine, I think you need to get home," he said quietly. "Where's Dave? He'll drive you."

"He's not here," I told him. Parties like these weren't really his scene. I hadn't thought they were Pony's, either.

Ponyboy sighed. "I'll drive you, then."

_I don't want to leave._ "You can't drive," I said instead.

"Neither can you," he said firmly. He took my hand and led me down the driveway, my loud protests that _I could, too, drive—I had my own car_ falling onto deaf ears.

xxxx

The drive home was spent in stony silence. Ponyboy sat stiffly in the driver's seat of Sodapop's car, staring straight ahead, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were white. I studied his profile, wondering what I'd said that was horrible enough to make him so mad at me. He didn't even look over at me once.

Pony walked me all the way to the doorstep. "Are your parents still awake?"

I vaguely recalled that I'd left through the window. "No."

"Do you have a key?" He wouldn't look at me.

"There's a spare under here." I kicked the doormat. I wished he would go away; I felt bad enough already.

He looked up from his shoes for the first time. "Christine …"

"Ithinkyoushouldleave." My words came out sounding strange and jumbled together, even though I'd had a hard time getting them out before. My stomach churned unpleasantly, and even though I'd been so angry before, now I just felt weak and tired.

Ponyboy met my eyes. His expression was open for the first time weeks, but I couldn't read it.

"Please." I was close to tears.

So he did. He left without another word.

I watched the car back slowly out of the driveway, realized I still had his jacket, and then suddenly I was crying. I never made noise when I cried, but now my tears came out in choking, gasping sobs.

And then, before I could even begin to compose myself, something came up in my stomach. I stumbled forward and vomited into my mother's freshly planted petunias.

**

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**

**Oops—Christine forgot about Melanie …**


	16. Headaches & Confrontations

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing except a computer and a vivid imagination.

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**Chapter Sixteen: Headaches and Confrontations**

The next morning, I was jolted out of a heavy sleep with an uneasy stomach, a horrible taste in my mouth, and the worst headache of my life.

It took me a minute of groaning and dazed blinking to realize what had woken me up in the first place.

The phone beside my bed was ringing.

I rolled over, disentangled one arm from the sheets that had somehow gotten wrapped around me, and made a swipe at the phone. The only things on my mind were my headache, the shrill ringing, and making it stop.

"Hello?" I croaked into the receiver.

"Chrissy?" an anxious voice replied. It was Cherry.

"Yeah." I sat up in bed with a grunt of effort—my head felt like it weighed a thousand times as much as the rest of my body—rubbed my sore eyes, and squinted against the harsh sunlight pouring in through my open window, wondering how I could have possibly slept through the glare. I must have forgotten to close the blinds last night …

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "How are you feeling?"

"Like someone ran over me with a truck." I rubbed my throbbing temple, bit back a groan, and wondered what I'd done last night.

Then I realized I couldn't remember.

Cherry sighed. "Well, I just wanted to make sure you made it home all right last night. We were worried."

As soon as her words fought their way through my hazy thoughts, I almost fell out of bed. Vague memories of last night were starting to become clearer, and I was starting to wish they wouldn't. I could remember dim lights and loud music and dancing, lots of dancing.

And …

"Do you remember what happened last night? We all had a few drinks, you know, but you were pretty well gone."

I groaned out loud because I did and I wished I didn't. "Yeah. I remember," I muttered, and moved to stand up. My stomach churned in protest.

"No one saw you again after you went outside, so we figured you'd found a ride home," Cherry said. She seemed awful eager to defend herself.

"What time is it?" I interrupted her. I wasn't in the mood to listen to her explain why they had left the party without knowing where I was. I couldn't believe she had thought a call in the morning would make up for that.

"It's almost ten."

With a sigh, I said, "Thanks for calling, Cherry. I have to go; I don't know if my mother knows I was gone." Boy, that was all I needed—to be grounded again. If she found out, Mom would never let me out of her sight again. Plus, I wasn't exactly in the mood to do any explaining to anyone. I didn't even know what I would say about where Melanie had got to.

"I'll see you in school tomorrow." Even the sound of her lilting voice made my head pound.

"Okay." I hung up the phone and threw myself back onto my bed. This was some kind of mess I'd managed to get myself into. I squeezed my eyes shut and thought of Ponyboy. Glory, what would he say at school?

I didn't even know what _I_ would say to _him_.

When I opened my eyes again, I was staring at his leather jacket, which I'd thrown over my vanity chair. My stomach twisted again, and I dashed for the bathroom and was sick into the toilet.

I took a shower, scrubbing vigorously at my face to remove the leftover make-up and Lord knew what else, and I was feeling marginally better when I finally went downstairs, formulating half-cooked excuses about where Melanie had got to.

To my astonishment, Melanie was sitting at the breakfast table with my father, chatting politely with my mother, who was at the stove.

"Eggs, Chrissy?" Mom asked when she saw me.

"What?" I was staring at Mel, who smiled serenely. She looked as cheerful as she always did in the mornings—you'd never know she had been out drinking until all hours the night before.

Mom looked at me impatiently. "Would you like some eggs?"

"Sure." I sat down at the table next to Melanie—Dad didn't even look up from his newspaper when I helped myself to some of his coffee instead of some orange juice—and hissed, "How did you get in here?"

"You left the door unlocked," Mel whispered back.

And that was that. Not one word about last night, not even a simple _How are you feeling?_ I rubbed my aching temples, watched her take a bite of her cereal, and wondered why Ponyboy Curtis seemed to care more about me than she did.

xxxx

"Are you sure you're feeling all right?" David asked for the third time.

I gritted my teeth—I felt anything but all right—but forced a smile. "I'm fine. I told you—I'm just tired."

David frowned. "I heard it got pretty wild at Terry's. Were you there for that big fight?"

"No." I stepped around a boy sitting on the floor in front of a bank of lockers. We'd walked in through a south entrance and into a popular greaser hangout before school and between classes—these back halls were territory they had claimed years ago, regardless of where their lockers were located. The boundaries weren't really defined any more, but a year ago I would have gone out of my way to avoid using the south doors.

"Some kid got busted up real bad," David said.

I decided not to mention that I probably wouldn't remember the fight even if I'd seen it.

"Someone pulled a blade—the kids were both wasted. I never understood why people think it's fun to get stoned at parties."

Coming from anyone else that would have sounded pretty hypocritical, but David was a good kid. He didn't drink or do drugs, and I knew he'd never in a million years understand how some people could just drink for conformity.

Or because they were so desperate that they thought it might make things better.

Or because their friends told them to.

David took my hand when I stumbled and almost fell. "Careful, Chrissy. You sure have been acting strange."

I spotted Libby Burns up ahead. She was talking to Anthony Meyers, her hand resting flirtatiously on his arm, while he frowned down at her, clearly not amused. Angela Shepard was standing with Libby, sporting a short haircut that somehow made her look even prettier than before. Gosh, I knew girls at school who would kill for cheekbones like those.

I was watching Libby, though. There was something about her, I'd give her that. The confident way she shook her hair, the way she cocked one hip to the side when she stood, like she knew people were watching. Maybe that was why Ponyboy had looked twice at her.

There must have been something else, though. Something I was missing.

Libby glanced at me and looked away indifferently, as if she'd expected me to be looking at her. She turned her attention back to Anthony, who seemed to be softening. I knew they'd be back together by lunchtime. This was high school, after all, and girls like Libby were never alone for long.

David walked me all the way to my locker without saying anything else. That was one of the best things about him: he could make small talk, but he was just as content to be quiet sometimes. Sometimes I wondered if he thought about the same things I did.

"I'll see you at lunch, okay?" David said.

I looked at him and something sank inside my stomach because I was playing a game with him and I'd been playing the same game all along. And he'd waited patiently the whole time.

For some reason, the thought made me place my hand on his arm and stand on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek. "Okay," I told him.

It wasn't enough, but it was something.

He smiled his nice smile and turned around to go in the same direction that we'd come. I knew my locker was out of the way for him.

There was a tug on my ponytail from behind.

"Two-Bit!" I was surprised to see him—he wasn't usually over here first thing in the morning. "What are you doing here?"

He shrugged. "I was in the neighborhood."

I had a feeling he wasn't, but I didn't say anything.

"Hey, ain't you got a class to get to or somethin'?" he asked. The halls had started to clear out; the bell was due to ring soon.

"Yeah, homeroom." I giggled, and the sound seemed strange, like I hadn't laughed in a long time. "I think you're taking the same class? It's sort of a requirement."

It had become unspoken between us that Ponyboy was not someone we mentioned, since we clearly had a difference in opinion. We were still pretending, I guess. It was something I'd learned to do well. It was still hanging in the air between us, though, keeping us from getting any closer together. Every time Two-Bit saw me with David I was pushing him farther away because Pony was the reason he knew me in the first place and he used to be what we had in common. I didn't know what he knew about us, and I was sure I didn't want to know, either.

"A _requirement_?" Two-Bit scratched his head. "Nobody mentioned any requirements to me."

I tried to smile, but that didn't feel right, either. "Aw, get to class, Two-Bit."

"What, and be left off the detention roster for the day? I figure five minutes should do it."

I had to grin at that. "Go on."

Two-Bit waved and walked off, and I watched his jaunty stride and wondered if things between us would ever really be the same again.

xxxx

Before cheerleading practice the next day, I found Ponyboy leaning against my locker, slouched down like a hoodlum with his hands in the pockets of his jacket. His cheeks and nose were pink—he'd just been outside.

I stopped in my tracks and almost turned around and left—the halls were deserted, so there was no one to rescue me, and I'd done a great job of not speaking to him until then—but I had books I needed for my homework and I was already running late.

"Hey," Pony said when he saw me.

He had said he'd leave me alone …

"Hi," I said shortly, twirling the combination lock three times to clear it. Maybe if I didn't look at him my resolve would hold and I wouldn't burst into tears or show any other sign of emotion.

_Fifteen—_

"Christine."

The numbers on the lock blurred together. _Twelve—_

He took my hand and pulled until I was facing him.

"You messed me up." My voice shook. I couldn't look at him; shame and humiliation made me stare at my feet instead. He must have thought I was so stupid—letting my friends get me drunk, acting like one of those girls I knew he didn't like. Those clingy, giggly girls who wore their skirts too short and laughed too loudly for attention.

And the worst part was that I couldn't blame him. Not one bit.

"Christine, what happened Saturday night?" Pony looked genuinely bewildered. There wasn't a trace of anger or disgust on his face, which only made me feel worse. "I never seen you so …"

"Trashed?" I supplied bravely. "I was drunk, Ponyboy. How did you expect me to act?"

I hated the way my voice sounded—annoyed, condescending.

Pony stared at me. "I was worried about you."

I looked away, fighting a strange mixture of defensiveness and shame. "I have friends, you know. You don't have to look out for me."

Now he looked disgusted, just like he had the other night. "I can't imagine why you would call girls like Tricia Hogan your friends. She doesn't give a damn about you, an' you know it. She watched you go off with Williamson like she didn't even know you. Do you know you mighta ended up—"

He stopped talking abruptly as I froze.

"What? I might have ended up _what_?" I was shaking. What gave him the right to insult my friends? To insult _me_?

"Not all greasers are like me an' Two-Bit," Ponyboy said. "You shouldn't even be over at Terry Jones' house."

I was incredulous. "And _you_ should?"

"Yes!" He stared at me, his expression nothing short of exasperated. "I'm a greaser. I know these people, Christine, and they ain't always nice to girls like you."

I set my jaw angrily. "Girls like me? What does that mean—nice girls or Soc girls?"

"Both." He was unfazed.

"Well, you know what?" I took a step closer. "Maybe you should spend less time worrying about me and more time thinking about the people who are worried about you. Do you know your friend Two-Bit was worried enough to ask _me_ to talk some sense into you?"

I felt a terrible sense of satisfaction when a muscle jumped in his jaw, accompanied by that familiar sickening shame. I knew I had taken a cheap shot, but I couldn't stop. The awful words came pouring out. "Don't you say anything to me about my friends, Ponyboy, because you don't know anything about us and you're not treating your friends any better than mine are treating me."

And then, because I was too angry and too mortified to look at him for another second, I turned on my heel and left for practice.

xxxx

By the time I got to the school gym, I was almost in tears.

"What's wrong with you?" Melanie asked as I took my place next to her in the formation, shrinking under Tricia's withering glare.

"Nothing," I said flatly.

As I'd predicted, Mel shrugged and turned away from me to say something to one of the other cheerleaders. She probably wasn't in the mood to deal with trivial issues like her best friend's well-being.

Practice was a nightmare. Tricia was in such a bad mood that day that she threatened to kick Laurie, Jennifer Stander, and me all off the squad and replace us with girls from the B squad. She made me turn cartwheels until I was dizzy after I messed up the first one, and my face was still hot as we handed our pom-poms to Cherry and left twenty minutes later.

Melanie was chattering away when we pushed open the back door to the gym and stepped outside, our shoes crunching in the frost with each step. After an unseasonably warm weekend, it suddenly felt like January again.

"I was thinking about wearing that green blouse with my new gray skirt. What do you think?"

I looked up, recognizing my cue. The headache that had hit me during practice was growing worse with every word she said.

"Well?" she prompted.

"You have lots of green blouses." I hugged my jacket closer to me. I didn't have the energy to pretend to be interested in what she was saying.

Mel frowned at me and I realized I'd probably said something that didn't compute.

"You do." I shrugged. "Do you really think Greg's going to pay attention to what you're wearing, anyway?"

"What?" She looked genuinely puzzled.

I sighed. "Melanie, I'm just not in the mood, all right?" I didn't know why it was so hard for her to understand that other people weren't always as interested in listening to her talk about herself as she was in talking about herself.

She persisted. "You're not in the mood for what? Making conversation?"

"Conversation is a two-way street," I said without thinking.

"That's pretty hard when you're not listening to a word I'm saying," Melanie snapped.

I wasn't in the mood to try to tell her what she wanted to hear. I just couldn't do it. Not now, not again. "Mel, can we please not do this right now?" With the mood I was in, there was no telling what I would say.

"Do what?" Melanie put her hands on her hips.

That was it. There was no stopping it. Words I'd been biting back for months came to the tip of my tongue because I was too angry and too tired to hold them back any more. I had nothing left to lose.

"Melanie, I am not in the mood to listen to what you're saying and pretend you care if I say anything back, all right? You could talk to a wall and you'd still hear your own voice, you know."

She took a step back like I'd slapped her in the face, but she said nothing.

I was so mad I was shaking. "When was the last time you stopped to think about what's going on in my life? When I told you my mother and I weren't getting along, did you think it was a joke? And what about Ponyboy Curtis, huh?"

"What about him?" Melanie's blue eyes were flashing.

"How come it was okay to talk to him when _you_ were all sweet on him, but when you changed your mind I'm not allowed to be friends with him? This is about _him_, Melanie, don't you see it? I _like_ him, and I always did, and you were too wrapped up in yourself to see it. Just because, for once, you didn't get what you wanted. You don't know anything about me any more because you didn't care enough to ask."

I couldn't believe this was happening. Right here, on the front lawn of the school, for all the world to see. But there was nothing I could do. From the look on Melanie's face, it was too late to take anything back.

"Do you think I don't know anything?" Her voice was low and dangerous where mine had been loud and high-pitched.

I stared at her.

"I saw you." The words came out tonelessly. "That night on the Ribbon? I saw you with him. I saw him kiss you."

That wasn't something I was prepared for. "You … I … _what_?"

"I'm not as stupid as you must think I am," Melanie said. "And I tried to ask you about it. I wanted you to tell me what had happened, but every time I asked about David you said things were fine. And that's still what he thinks, isn't it? What are you doing to that poor boy, Christine?" When I said nothing, she added, "Maybe I'm not the only one who's self-centered—sometimes I think you can't see anything you don't want to. You need to get your priorities in line, and fast."

All I could do was stand there, motionless and furious, as she shook her head, turned around, and left.

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**A/N:** Next chapter: Christine gets a major wake-up call.

You can expect a Pony-centric one shot after chapter seventeen. Anyone curious about what is going on in that senseless boy's mind?

Feel free to point out any mistakes—Lord knows I make enough of them for three good writers, and even more when I'm tired. :) Thanks for reading!


	17. Boiling Points & Ruined Chances

**Disclaimer:** Don't own ...

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**Chapter Seventeen: Boiling Points and Ruined Chances**

"Christine, could I see you at my desk, please?" Ms. Belmont spoke over the noise of my classmates gathering their belongings and chattering idly on their way out of the classroom. The bell had just rung, and I was eager to escape.

I was trapped. I knew it. She wanted to talk to me about our most recent composition, the one on Shakespeare, the one I had dashed off in twenty minutes in between math problems that made no sense without Melanie there to explain them.

We were supposed to be discussing the main reason that Romeo and Juliet were kept apart. Was it meant to happen that way? Who was to blame?

It was society that kept them apart. I knew that. It was their families, their friends. But I couldn't write about that. I couldn't.

Ponyboy, lagging behind the rest of the students, met my eyes on his way out, then looked away quickly, looking lost.

"See you later, Chrissy." Mary, the girl I'd been talking to, gave me a sympathetic smile and followed him out of the room.

That was something all my friends seemed to enjoy doing. That same simpering smile that said, _don't worry, I'm on your side._ Because there was nothing high school girls loved more than seeing two friends fighting.

And _everyone_ knew. Not that I cared—I just wanted Melanie back.

I took my time packing away my notebook and copy of _Hamlet_. The rest of the class was nearly finished reading it; I had hardly started. What was the point? I'd read it already, back in junior high.

When I finally dragged myself up to Ms. Belmont's desk, I saw what must have been my composition sitting in front of her. My handwriting was swallowed by red pen, and the letter "D" was printed neatly at the top.

"I don't want to make you late for your next class, Christine, but I wanted to talk to you about your latest composition."

I swallowed hard and tried to arrange my features into an expression resembling polite puzzlement. "Ma'am?"

Ms. Belmont sighed heavily, removed her reading glasses, and set them down on the desk in front of her. "I must say, this was not up to your usual standards. The whole paper felt … rushed, unemotional. There was no feeling there." Her earnest dark eyes searched my face for a reaction. I was determined not to give her one. "I feel you missed the point of the assignment."

"To be frank, Ms. Belmont," I said as calmly as I could, "I had a really hard time with this topic."

"What was it that gave you trouble?" She looked so concerned that I felt bad about pretending her assignment was the only problem I had.

I had to look away. "I don't know, really …" I couldn't very well tell her that I was finding the story to have a few unsettling parallels to my own stupid choices in the past few months, nor could really I mention that when you were fighting with your best friend, sometimes talking on the phone really _was_ more important than doing homework. (Somehow I doubted she'd understand.)

"Is this a problem with the paper, Christine, or with the class?" Ms. Belmont asked gently. "I must say, I've noticed a general decline in the quality of your work this semester. Are you having trouble keeping up?"

_No,_ I wanted to scream at her. _Why can't you understand that this isn't about your stupid class?_ I'd recently had the same talk with Ms. Howard about my math grade. Why were all teachers so insistent in their belief that their class was the only important part of our lives?

I tried to think of a more eloquent way to voice this view, but the warning bell rang before I could come up with anything good.

"Do you think you would to better if you were to write on another topic?" Ms. Belmont asked as students began to file into the classroom.

"I …" The truth was, I probably couldn't.

"I'm only willing to try this once, but I might be able to overlook this latest composition if you can hand something else in on Monday. Can you come in after school today?"

All I wanted was to escape the classroom. "Sure, Ms. Belmont."

She scribbled out a pass to my next class and smiled. "And if there's ever anything you want to talk about …"

"Thank you, ma'am." I took the pass and hurried out of the classroom, praying that my French teacher was in a good mood.

xxxx

On Wednesday night, my mother exploded.

Figuratively, of course.

Daddy got home, late as usual, when Mom, Kelly, and I were in the middle of eating dinner. We were all sitting quietly around the table. Mom was stabbing at her food. Kelly and I were both too scared to say anything to her—she'd been in a dangerous mood since I'd gotten home.

"I got held up at the office," Dad said, leaning down to kiss Mom.

She sat perfectly still—didn't even kiss the air beside his cheek as she'd recently taken to doing.

Kelly and I exchanged glances. We both knew what this meant. Daddy was in trouble, big trouble. The smartest thing to do would be to sit tight and eat as quickly as possible so that we could excuse ourselves and escape the crossfire.

"I called you at work a few hours ago," Mom said to the glossy wooden table. "Your secretary said you were out of the office."

I looked down at my plate. When my mother was in a dangerous mood, one wrong word could earn you a vicious tongue lashing. I was suddenly devoutly thankful that I'd been careful to stay out of her way recently—both of our tempers had been rising to dangerous levels. Gosh, if I were still spending as much time with Ponyboy as I had been six weeks ago …

_No._ He's not important, I thought as though I might suddenly start believing it. He doesn't matter. (_Right, and neither did Melanie or our friendship_.)

I should just be grateful that Mom and I hadn't been fighting so much, or I might be the victim of her wrath.

Dad was frowning at her. "I told you I would be in meetings today and you shouldn't call."

"Well, your _secretary_ said something different." Mom wasn't even pretending she was just making casual conversation any more. Her posture was getting stiffer and stiffer, and her face was carefully closing itself off.

"I told you—"

"_Rick_."

He stopped and looked at her.

Mom's eyes—the same shade of blue as mine—were blazing. "I will not be made a fool of. If you're lying to me, make sure your secretary is telling me the same story."

Kelly was bewildered. I was horrified. She couldn't possibly think—

"Girls," Dad said, tearing his eyes away from Mom to glance at us. "Go upstairs."

"I'm not finished—" Kelly started to protest.

"_Now_, Smelly." I stood up abruptly and glared at her, wishing she wasn't so young, wishing she understood. Wishing Mom and Dad could keep their arguments private so I wouldn't have to explain to her what was going on.

Kelly looked like she had half a mind to protest, but I kept my eyes trained on her and something seemed to click. She didn't know what was happening, but she knew that it was bad and she knew she didn't want to see it.

We left our plates on the table, and it was a tribute to the tension in the air that Mom didn't say anything to us as we hurried out of the room.

"No, I will _not_ calm down, Richard!" was the last thing we heard before I ushered Kelly up the stairs.

I had never been more thankful that our housekeeper had Wednesdays off.

"Prissy?" Kelly's round blue eyes were filling with tears. She was a smart kid.

"Get into your room and get ready for bed, Kelly," I said as calmly as I could. My mind was reeling; I couldn't think of anything to say to make her feel better. I couldn't tell her that this was a _dry spell_ because that clearly wasn't the only problem any more. No—Mama thought that Daddy was having … she thought he …

It was different this time.

How had I _missed_ it? But I knew. I had been so caught up in myself and my friends and … and _Ponyboy_.

But mostly myself.

Kelly didn't even complain that it wasn't her bedtime yet. She scurried into her room and closed the door. I heard her moving around, possibly arranging a tea party with her stuffed animals.

I slammed my bedroom door behind me, threw myself across my bed, and listened. Five minutes later, I heard the sound of something fragile shattering and knew this was my fault, that maybe if I hadn't been the first to make things tense around the dinner table, that if I hadn't been to blind to see it coming …

Because my mother and I were the same. We had a high boiling point, but once you reached it, there was no going back down.

Rolling over onto my stomach, I reached for the phone on my nightstand. I was halfway through dialing Melanie's number when I remembered that the two of us weren't speaking. I put the receiver down, buried my face in my pillow, and let myself cry as I listened to Dad storm upstairs.

When I sneaked down the stairs later that night, Mom was still sitting at the table, head in her hands, a plate lying shattered on the floor.

xxxx

"Do y'all want popcorn?" I whispered to Todd and Cherry.

The movie had hardly started, but I couldn't bear sitting still for any longer. All I could do was stare at the screen and think about Melanie and Ponyboy and how I, so self-righteous, had been so convinced that I was right, always right … They were thoughts I'd been pushing away for weeks, and sitting here with David, I couldn't escape them.

Todd glanced at me. "Sure, Chrissy."

David gave me a funny look; I think he'd realized something was wrong. For a boy, he could be awful perceptive. But I didn't have the patience to assure him that I was fine.

I took a quarter from Todd, climbed out of his car, and moved toward the concession stand, desperate to stretch my legs and to get away from that stupid car. My fingers were itching for a crossword—anything to distract me.

By the time I saw Ponyboy leaning against the fence behind the concession stand, smoking a cigarette, it was too late.

I had spotted him standing around with a group of friends before the movie and wasn't surprised; the Nightly Double was packed. Tulsa was big, but our school was more like a small town than anything else. The movie tonight was a new one, and it seemed like half the school had shown up, even though it had been raining off and on all day.

But seeing Pony in passing didn't prepare me to actually talk to him. I wasn't sure that anything really could.

Pony looked at me, looked through me, and I shivered under his steady gaze.

Instead of joining the concession line, I followed Ponyboy back to the fence before anyone in line recognized me. I couldn't help it. I couldn't walk away.

"Ponyboy." I called out to him.

He didn't move a muscle.

"Hi," I whispered breathlessly, wanting to kick myself for my lack of self-control in his presence.

"Hi." He wasn't greeting me; he was just repeating what I'd said.

I hugged my jacket closer, self-conscious, and bounced nervously on the balls of my feet. I wondered if he was thinking about what had happened the last time we had met like this, in a quiet place, away from our friends.

One look at his face and I knew he was.

"Having fun?" he asked, and I knew he'd seen me with David.

I couldn't answer without lying or sounding absolutely pathetic. "Pony …"

"What _is_ it, Christine?" He searched my face for an explanation, any explanation.

_I'm sorry. I miss you. _It was all I had to say. Maybe it wouldn't fix anything, but fixing things didn't seem to be an option now. All I wanted—all I wanted that I could maybe have—was for Ponyboy to look at me and not see Cherry Valance.

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

And Ponyboy was tired of waiting … I could see it in his eyes.

"I'm sorry."

I finally spat it out when he started to walk away. I don't know what made me actually say it, but I knew that I couldn't lose him, not again. So I spoke the words loudly into the wind, to the back of his jacket, like I was afraid he might not hear me. Even though I knew he would.

He paused, then turned.

"What for?"

I made myself look right into his eyes. This was something I had to do. "I'm sorry about that day in biology class. Last year. Do you remember?"

Pony didn't speak, didn't even move, but I could tell from the surprise that flashed across his features that he did.

"I embarrassed you in front of the whole class. What I said … it was stupid, and I wish I hadn't said it." The wind was stinging my eyes, and tears were welling up because I missed him and wanted him to hold me and wished my life would just go back to the way it used to be. But I couldn't look away, I couldn't blink. I had to tell him. I had to prove …

_Prove what?_

That I wasn't silly and shallow like my friends. _Even though I am._ That I wasn't weak, that I wasn't afraid. _Even though I am._

That I wasn't the same girl who spoke without thinking and made judgments on the spot.

_That_ was what I wanted him to know.

Ponyboy stood there looking at me for a few seconds that stretched out forever. The wind played with our hair.

"I always meant to tell you that," I said, and I could hear the desperation in my voice. I didn't want him to leave—he couldn't leave. But I made myself stand still and I waited.

He took a step forward, then another.

And when he wrapped his arms around me, we were able to pretend that everything was okay.

"I was so terrible," I said into his shirt, "when you wanted to talk to me. I said those—"

I couldn't say anything else. Ponyboy kissed my hair; he understood. It wouldn't fix anything between us—not really—but I felt like some weight had been lifted off my chest, and suddenly it was so much easier to breathe.

And, gosh, it was wrong to add my stupid problems to his—and Lord knew he had plenty of his own—and rely on him for comfort after how I had treated him … But I wasn't strong enough to do it on my own.

When I lifted my head from his shoulder, though, any relief vanished. Because he was too close. But I wanted him closer.

"Get away from her, Curtis."

Pony had stepped away and moved in front of me before I could even react.

David stood in front of us, tall and strong in his letter jacket. "I want you to keep your hands off of her," he said. His voice was eerily calm.

"David." I pushed Ponyboy aside. This was my fault, not his.

"Stay out of this, Chrissy." He glanced over at me and then back and Pony, and I realized that he wasn't surprised, or even very angry. He didn't want to fight Ponyboy; he was doing this for someone else. Not me. He knew how I felt about fighting.

"I'm not looking for a fight, Richmond." Ponyboy's expression was carefully shuttered.

Bobby Sellars, the big football quarterback we'd brought here in the trunk of Todd's car, stepped out of the shadows until his face was fully visible in the moonlight. "Neither are we." The warning in his voice and the threatening way he stepped forward said otherwise. "'S long as you keep yer hands to yourself."

David wasn't looking at Pony, though; he was looking around the concession stand. "Where's Shepard?"

The unmistakable sound of a blade being flicked out came from behind Ponyboy. Bobby jumped, and a small gasp escaped me. Curly Shepard was suddenly standing next to Pony, sizing Bobby up. He held a six-inch switchblade out in front of him with the air of someone who had lots of practice with it. "You boys wanta fight?"

Good Lord, how long had be been standing there? My face burned. But one glance at David told me what I needed to know. Shepard had come after Pony and David had seen it … even when I hadn't.

"We told you." Bobby was looking at the blade with something resembling fear. "We just want your hands offa our girls, and it seems your buddy here has a hard time understanding."

Pony and I both jumped at this, but it was clear Bobby didn't really know what was going on. David, on the other hand …

"I'll handle this, Rob." David wasn't looking at me or at Bobby; he was watching Ponyboy.

"Fine." Bobby took me by the elbow. "Let's go, Chrissy."

_I don't want to._

Ponyboy was watching me.

I couldn't say anything.

I let Bobby move his arm across my shoulders and steer me away from the concession stand and back in the direction of David's car. All I could do was cast one glance over my shoulder at Pony. He wouldn't meet my eyes. I didn't blame him.

"Keep away from that kid, Chrissy," Bobby was saying as I thought of David facing Ponyboy and Curly Shepard all by himself. "Guys like him are bad news."

When I looked at him, I knew he was disgusted with me. He didn't want to be _rescuing _me from greasers like Ponyboy.

But I was a cheerleader, and therefore, I was their property. And Bobby protected what was his.

"Don't touch me." I shrugged his arm away. "You don't know anything, Bobby." It was the truth, and it came too late.

The movie was still going on when we got back to the cars and I climbed into David's passenger seat (figuring I had given him enough trouble already without running off again). I had only been gone ten minutes—no more.

Bobby left before Cherry could ask him any questions. When she asked me what was going on, I blinked at the screen and told her it was nothing.

David came back a minute later, looking no worse for the wear. They hadn't fought, then.

Most of me was relieved.

We sat in silence. I wished he'd say something. But when I finally dared to look over at him, I wished I hadn't.

He almost managed to keep all traces of emotion off his face, but there was something there I didn't want to see, because it meant that he, like Melanie, was smarter than I gave him credit for. He wasn't disgusted like Bobby, or angry, or jealous. He was defeated. He was disappointed.

I glanced periodically back at the concession stand, but Pony never came back.

A few minutes before the end of the movie, the skies finally opened up and it began to pour.

xxxx

David walked with me up my driveway even though the rain was still coming hard and fast.

Just before we made it up the porch steps and under the cover of the doorway, David stopped and stood facing me. Even in the dark, I could see the drops of water running down his face. It was devoid of expression, and it scared me.

I wanted to say something, something to make everything better, but I couldn't. So I stood dumbly while he leaned down and kissed me.

And all I could do was think vaguely, _He's kissing me in the rain._

I kissed him back. I didn't mean to.

He pulled away after a moment and looked at me. Just stood there watching me for a long time while I stared back, stunned. Then he gave me a rueful smile, turned around, and walked back to the car without a word. And I knew he wouldn't call me again.

I stood there in the freezing rain for a long time, then trudged inside, ignored my mother's cry of alarm at how wet I was, and went straight to my room. Too worn out by the night's events to care that I was sopping wet, I collapsed onto my bed.

I don't know how long I was lying there before the phone on my nightstand rang, or whether I fell asleep, but I almost tumbled onto the floor in surprise. Once I recovered, I dove for it. It was getting late, and there was no telling what might set Mom off these days. "Hello?"

A pause. "Chrissy?" I knew that voice.

"Two-Bit?" I jumped to my feet in surprise and clutched at the phone just so I wouldn't drop it.

"Hey, kid." His voice was hoarse, so hoarse I could hardly recognize it. If I hadn't talked to him as much as I had, I wouldn't have.

"I—how'd you get my number?" I managed to choke out around the growing lump in my throat. Two-Bit and I hadn't spoken for two weeks. He had no reason to call me … no reason to _want_ to.

Two-Bit laughed, but that didn't sound right either. "Found it. Ponykid had it wrote down." Any other day I might have corrected his grammar, but somehow it didn't seem like the right time.

"Is there … something wrong?" I couldn't get around the question.

He didn't answer.

"Two-Bit … where are you?" I asked slowly. I looked at the clock beside my bed. It was almost one.

There was a short pause, and then Two-Bit said, "I'm at Mercy Hospital. Pony—" He stopped and tried again. "There was a wreck."

No. _No._

I sank back onto my bed. "A wreck? A _car _wreck?" My voice was high and shrill. "He doesn't even drive!" Even I knew that was a stupid thing to say. Pony had driven me home. But I was grasping at straws.

"No, he don't, but—" Two-Bit made another attempt at a chuckle. "The stupid kid got in a car with Curly Shepard. Dammit, if he would just _think_—"

"Two-Bit!" I was struggling to control myself. "What _happened_?"

The pause before he replied seemed to last forever. "They were drivin' back from the movies and met some kids who had a beef with Shepard. I dunno exactly what happened, but I guess they were racing."

I blinked and swiped dazedly at my cheeks. My hand came back wet. "What—I … when?"

"'Bout an hour ago." I looked at the clock again. My stomach twisted. "I went to get some things for Darry an' I found your number on Pony's desk." He was trying to stay calm, but I knew there was no hope for me. Melanie always did say I was too excitable, I thought wryly.

I was gripping the phone so tightly my fingers hurt. "How is he?" I asked thickly.

"Shoot, kid … I dunno," Two-Bit said. He had given up trying to make light of this. I never thought I'd see the day things became too serious for him to make a wisecrack. "The doc won't let me in. Family only. Darry's in there now." He paused. "Would you … could you come down here?"

My first instinct was to grab my car keys right now, climb out my window, and book it out of there before my parents knew I was gone. My fingers even moved instinctively toward my keys.

Then I remembered.

"Two-Bit, I can't," I said quietly.

Pause. "What? Why not?"

I squeezed my eyes shut. "I just can't, all right?" I said. My voice sounded strange even to me, unfamiliar.

"Christine, I just don't dig you," Two-Bit said finally. "What's the problem?"

I couldn't tell him. I couldn't tell him how I had let Ponyboy down again.

"I just can't, Two-Bit! How hard is that to understand?" I was crying outright now, and it was pretty clear to him, I was sure.

"Well, it would be a helluva a lot easier if you could explain it to me!" He was getting mad now, and I didn't blame him a bit. There shouldn't have been a problem, but there was. Because _I _had messed up. And that was why I couldn't go. I couldn't face him.

But I knew I wouldn't be able to make him understand. "Look, Two-Bit, I—I just—I _can't. _I've been so awful … he must hate me." But he didn't, I knew. He had a damn good reason to, and he didn't.

"An' it's not just that," I added feebly when he said nothing. "It's my parents … my friends … I can't. I'm sorry, Two-Bit." I hated myself for saying it, for lying, but I had to. And as I spoke, all I could imagine was Ponyboy lying in a hospital bed covered in cuts and bruises. What if he was hurt real bad? What if he had a concussion? What if—?

Two-Bit interrupted before my imagination could take me farther. "So that's it, huh? You're afraid if ruinin' your rep?" I could imagine how disgusted he looked now. I was disgusted with myself. Because that wasn't the problem, but still … it was. My reputation was what had caused all these problems in the first place. "You know, if you'd told Pony that up-front, you might've saved him a whole lot of trouble."

I could only cry harder, because he was right. "Two-Bit … I'm sorry," I whispered, so softly I almost hoped he wouldn't hear.

"No, Christine," he told me, and I heard genuine sadness. "I'm sorry."

The line disconnected with a _click_.

* * *

**A/N:** Whoa, this was a long one. I know it's been forever -- I'm sorry. School has had my life in chaos for a month and a half now. I really hope there won't be this long of a wait between chapters again.

I really appreciate your patience, and as always, feel free to point out any mistakes. :)

Special thanks to some blue december, who actually went through and reviewed every chapter of this fic in about two days.


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